BEIJING, May 16. /TASS/. Senior US military commanders are operating based on false premises and are thus misinterpreting cooperative defense ties between China and Russia, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson, Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, said on Tuesday.

"If someone is biased in their judgment or adheres to narrow, outdated thinking reminiscent of the Cold War era, while looking at China with alarm and giving [a matching] assessment of the military relationship between China and Russia, his or her premises and arguments could be said to be fallacious," Tan said in a statement, adding that he doubted that taking such an approach would lead to sound judgments.

Tan’s comment came in response to a remark by US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Mark Milley, who warned that the United States would make efforts to forestall the emergence of a China-Russia strategic military alliance as being antithetical to US interests.