Iran Press/Asia: Beijing has issued a sharp rebuke after U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, citing its "negative content on China."
Of the record $895 billion the bill authorizes in spending—a 1 percent increase over last year and the largest defense budget in U.S. history—$15.5 billion is allocated to the U.S. Pacific Deterrence Initiative, established in 2021 to strengthen Indo-Pacific defense capabilities to counter China's growing military influence.
Additionally, the act authorizes up to $300 million in military articles and training for Taiwan, the self-governed island democracy that Beijing's Chinese Communist Party claims as its territory and has vowed to someday unify with.
Following the signing into law of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, China has lodged solemn representations with the United States over that which contains negative China-related content, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks at a daily press briefing in response to a query that U.S. President Joe Biden signed the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2025 into law on Monday.
Mao stressed that the U.S. side has played up the "China threat" year after year, preached military support to Taiwan, abused state power to suppress China's scientific, technological, and economic development, and restricted economic and trade exchanges as well as people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States.
The U.S. move has undermined China's sovereignty, security, and development interests, and disrupted efforts from both sides to stabilize bilateral relations.
"China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this, and has lodged stern representations with the U.S. side," she said.
The spokesperson said that China urges the U.S. side to discard the Cold War mentality and ideological bias, view China's development and China-U.S. relations objectively and rationally, and earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiqués.
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