Every year, the United States Department of Defense issues a report on China's military, which invariably is criticized by Beijing. This practice is not at all conducive to establishing a new type of relationship between the two countries and their militaries.

The Pentagon report on China's military is indeed mischievous. But it deserves to be studied from a professional perspective to determine how it reflects the latest developments in China's military. If we go through the reports the Pentagon has issued over the years, we will see that apart from US officials' figments of imagination, they also contain some predictive judgments. For example, the US said China was planning to build aircraft carriers much before China actually got one. That prediction came true last year when Liaoning was commissioned into the Chinese navy.

Therefore, we cannot just pour scorn on the Pentagon reports. The US military is a highly professional force and has its special qualities and advanced intelligence network. In fact, the Pentagon reports gives us a good idea about the US' surveillance- and intelligence-gathering capability and the amount of information it is willing to make public.