China warns against US turning Guam into ‘outpost to wage wars’

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – China on Thursday warned against turning Guam into a US “outpost to wage wars.”

“As for Guam … its security depends on what role the US wants Guam to play,” Senior Col. Wu Qian, spokesman for China's Defense Ministry, told a news conference in Beijing.

“If Guam were to be an outpost to wage wars, it would not be secure even if it were armed to the teeth,” said Wu.

Guam is a US island territory in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific.

Wu was responding to reports that Washington is planning to add 20 new air defense sites packed with surface-to-air interceptors and radars in Guam to make the island “the most densely protected place anywhere on the planet,” according to a transcript released by the ministry.

In January, the US opened its new military base in Guam, for the first time in 70 years. The base is expected to host around 5,000 Marines.

The spokesman said the US was “using non-existent threats as pretexts to advance forward military deployment in the Asia-Pacific, which undermined security interests of other countries and heightened regional tensions.”

Expressing China’s “firm” opposition, Wu said: “The US has withdrawn from arms control treaties, continued to deploy global anti-missile systems, and sought to deploy land-based intermediate ballistic missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, aiming to secure its own absolute security and military superiority.”

“In fact, these acts have increased the risk of conflict and confrontation,” he said.

Wu added: “China hopes the US side would abandon the obsolete cold-war and zero-sum mindset and narrow-minded geopolitical thinking, and do more things that are conducive to world peace and stability rather than the opposite.”

Meanwhile, he said Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops will join a multinational joint demining operation code-named "Pure Homeland-2023" in Cambodia from the end of August to late September.

Wu added China and Thailand will hold “Blue Strike-2023” joint naval training in the Gulf of Thailand and Sattahip in early September.