'West still can hardly get used to China's rise'

"After the speech of Mr Abe, a foreign friend told me I should keep calm. And after the speech of Mr Hagel, this friend told me again that I have to continue to keep calm," Wang Guanzhong, deputy chief of the General Staff of People's Liberation Army, said on Sunday.

"But I have to express gratitude and regret to my foreign friend," the PLA officer said, or rather joked, at the Shangri-La Dialogue, when he decided to reject Japanese and US accusations about China, changing the tone of his originally dovish speech.

Wang's difficult choice was evident throughout the three-day Asia-Pacific defense event, as an emerging China tried to better interact with the world while it was also thrown into the vortex of a discussion at the meeting dominated by the West.