Since China announced another big rise in its military spending earlier this month, Chinese officials in Beijing and diplomats posted in Asia-Pacific countries have been trying to spread an orchestrated message to the region: Don't be alarmed.
China is in a bind. Its declared defense budget, already the second highest in the world after the United States, will increase by 11.2 percent this year to $106.4 billion, after a 12.7 percent hike in 2011 and a near-unbroken string of double-digit rises for over two decades.
This military modernization program has made the Chinese armed forces the most powerful in Asia, and the gap with regional states is likely to continue widening unless China's turbo-charged economy falters badly.