The success in research of the Chinese Fighter J-10 and in equipping army units with it has reportedly touched off to a new round of wave for "China's military threat theory" overseas. Some people say Fighter J-10 outstrips the United States third generation fighter in term of performance, whereas others note it will inevitably effect the balance of the air operational capability in East Asia if such fighter is used to equip the Chinese military forces.

Taking an overall view of the accelerated development of the new military transformation, the forms of war have been shifted from mechanization to the information infrastructure based operation and the systematic confrontation has become the main feature of the battlefield confrontation. Leading global powers are now intensifying the readjustment of their security strategy and military strategy, developing high, new military technologies and weaponry, innovating military theory and speeding the transfer of their armed forces. So information technology keeps widening the differences in the military technology era of mechanization or semi-mechanization.

At present, China has the biggest regular army globally in term of its size. Owing to a prolonged, inadequate input, its disparity with the developed nations in the military sphere continues to widen instead of being narrowed in the process of in-depth reform. The Chinese army has not yet been mechanized, still far off from its objective of turning itself into one based on the information technologies.

China currently needs a mighty army in order to cope with threat it faces in state security, and particularly to safeguard its unity and territorial integrity. In recent years, it has stepped up its pace of developing new weaponry and scored gratifying achievements while increasing steadily its input in national defense and army building and pressing ahead with its new military reform with Chinese characteristics under the precondition of its increased economic strength. It has imported a few advanced planes and warships in a selected way. There have also been breakthroughs or marked upgrading in some weaponry and equipment development, including the development of Fighter J-10. The upgrading of a single weaponry platform, however, cannot represent the overall upgrading of the combat effectiveness of the entire weaponry system. Many military experts from Western nations have acknowledged that the weaponry of the Chinese army is at least 20 years behind that of the United States and other Western nations on the whole.

The U.S. and other Western nations which are superior to China militarily in an all-round way try hard to oppose the Europe Union (EU) in lifting its arms embargo against China and work to prevent Israel, Poland and Ukraine from selling military equipment to China, while peddling "China's military threat" in an attempt to push China to the "dock." or the defendant's seat. Their strategic intention is to "demonize" China's road for peaceful development by means of propagating "China's military theory" and carry out a "strategic encirclement" against its defense modernization and launch "preemptive attacks" against the country tactically by manipulating international public opinions. Taking "China's military threat" as an "inhibition," and through creating public opinions to smear and contain China, they induce the country to land itself into a "security predicament" in its course of defending its state security and development interests.

By keeping to its defensive military strategy, China does not mean to develop its offensive military capability. Military capability development should have both offensive and defensive types. Such military capability, nevertheless, is absolutely not for the purpose of external expansion, and will never be used to invade and bully other countries. Chinese military might is used only for counterattacks when its national interests are infringed upon, so that others will not rashly go in for military blackmail and military aggression against China. Its military strategy of active defense is in compliance with the "prudent or discreet warfare" and "courtesy warfare" advocated by Laozi, a noted philosopher and military strategist of the late Spring and Autumn period (770 BC-470 BC) and founder of Taoism. The military strategy of active defense also complements with China's adherence to the strategy for peace and development. From this sense, China's powerful military forces are not only a contingent of prowess but also a contingent of peace and a contingent of justice.

By People Daily Onlinee, and the author Yang Yi, director of the Institute of Strategic Studies affiliated to the National Defense University in Beijing