China can "disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options": Gates

[Naveed Yaseen]

WASHINGTON: China’s increasingly advanced weaponry could undermine US military power in the Pacific, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.

Echoing US intelligence guidelines released on Tuesday that warned of Beijing’s military modernisation, Gates said US naval carriers and air bases in the Pacific faced new threats from China.“In fact, when considering the military-modernisation programmes of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the US symmetrically and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options,” Gates said in a speech to the Air Force Association. afp

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