Nations ill-advised to spend more to boost military power

At the South China Sea conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Tuesday, one panel talked about military modernization and capacity building. The talk centered on China's military modernization and how that power might be projected in the South China Sea and how countries in the region should beef up their militaries to counter a possible China threat.

It's not unusual for some in the United States to sound threatened looking at China's military modernization, citing advances from command structure and submarines to bombers and fighter jets. Using the same logic, Chinese should feel even more scared given the unrivalled US military might, whether in terms of weaponry, the more than 1,000 military bases and installations across the world or the constant wars it has been fighting.

Still, that does not mean the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, should approve a 100-percent increase in defense spending to narrow this gap even though the US has been flexing its muscles near China's shores in both the South and East China seas. These include the provocative frequent surveillance by US military vessels and spy planes and the dispatch of aircraft carriers and strategic bombers to the region.