"China is leveraging military modernisation," the Pentagon said in its annual defence budget

Washington: China is coercing its neighbours to reorder the Indo-Pacific region, the Pentagon told Congress in its annual budget proposals for the fiscal 2019, beginning October 1 this year.

Trump administration today released their proposal for the fiscal year 2019 budget. Fiscal years are different from calendar years. The budgetary proposal covers October 1, 2018, through September 30, 2019.

"China is leveraging military modernisation, influence operations and predatory economics to coerce neighbouring countries to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to their advantage," the Pentagon said in its annual defence budget for the fiscal 2019.

As China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modernisation programme that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the US to achieve global preeminence in the future, it said.

The most far-reaching objective of this defence strategy is to set the military relationship between the US and China on a path of transparency and non-aggression, it said.

Despite the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's (ISIS) physical caliphate, threats to stability remain as terrorist groups with long reach continue to murder innocent people and threaten peace, the Pentagon added.