Amid the United States-China spat over the Pentagon's depiction of a 'China threat,' Washington has invited a senior Chinese official for talks to cool down tempers on both sides.
At the invitation of the government of the United States, Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan will visit the United States from July 26 to 31, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said on Saturday.
Tang's upcoming visit to Washington comes after Beijing denounced a Pentagon report that the rapid Chinese military expansion was posing a threat to its neighbours as well as to US interests in the Asia-Pacific region.
The visit will also take place on the same day China will host the fourth round of six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue here which is to be attended by envoys from the US, North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, who summoned a senior US diplomat to Beijing on Wednesday over the Pentagon report, strongly denounced the US allegations.
"The report has baselessly attacked China's modernisation of its national defence," Yang said in a statement. He accused Washington of looking for "an excuse to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan."
The Pentagon had also said that Chinese defence planners are looking at expanding beyond their goal of dominating Taiwan, which Beijing claims as a rebel province that should be reunified with the mainland, even by force.
Yang pointed out that the Pentagon report "ignores the facts, spares no effort to spread the 'China threat theory', rudely interfered in China's internal affairs."
He noted that the U.S. military budget was almost 17.8 times that of China's military budget of about 26 billion US dollars.
"What authority does the United States have to gesticulate about and make improper comments on China's defensive national defence policy and measures?" he said.
He called on the United States to "respect the facts, correct its errors, stop gratuitously attacking China, stop interfering in China's internal affairs and stop its Us has no authority words and deeds that damage Sino-U.S. relations."
At the same time, Yang stressed that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory and that Beijing firmly opposes any foreign intervention in China's internal affairs in any form. At the same time, China will not tolerate "Taiwan independence," he asserted.
China and Taiwan split in 1949 at the end of a civil war but Beijing still claims the cash-rich island as part its territory and has repeatedly threatened to invade if the island declares independence or drags its feet on reunification talks.
Though the US has switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to the China, Washington is the chief patron and defence supplier of the island of 23 million people.