Countering recent news reports, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday that China is not developing lasers capable of frying US satellite communications.
A recent US Defense Department report suggested that China could be developing a system of land-based laser weapons, but Major Brian Salas downplayed the threat in a telephone interview.
"The report looks at what the possibilities of the future might hold," said Salas.
Yu Shuning, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, denied any anti-satellite laser development, and he called recent media reports misleading.
"We constitute no threat to the United States," said Yu.
The Pentagon study on China's future military capabilities and strategy was originally released in July, and a declassified version was made available in early November.
The report said China had acquired certain laser technologies that could be used to develop anti-satellite capability. "It is reasonable to assume the Beijing would develop a weapon that could destroy satellites in the future," the report said, in part.
Salas admitted the statement was less than convincing. "We're doing one thing we don't like to do and that's speculate," Salas said. "But that's what Congress mandated us to do."
