Glad to see a reply from a Chinese person who isn't a fanatic.
I also agree with the fact that China should modernise it's military defence, but that isn't really what China is planning to do. China plans on going past that and building up it's military to be the strongest in the world and stronger then 5 countries put together.
This alarms people because they look at china and it's history and it's actions in the past and make an assumption.
China is a communist country. Communism hasn't really had a good past has it? In communist soviet Russia, they were hell bent on building up there military to be the strongest in the world, so they could do what they like and invade whoever they wanted to and Russia did invade alot of countries.
It's exactly what China has expressed interested in doing today. Which once again makes everyone scared.
Russia was also very secretive, just like China is today. They didn't show people in the outside world what they were doing, they controlled all the media, they controlled all there citizens movements, they didn't allow any elections, they didn't allow anyone to protest against there government even though the government were doing bad things. There was alot of human rights abuses.
So the same thing is happening in China today. History is repeating itself, and that makes people scared. China has openly expressed it's desire to invade countries and do what it likes without anyone being able to stop them. People think that China is the sleeping dragon, it's all nice and acts peaceful now but as soon as they get stronger then anyone they will come out and start invading everyone.
If China truly wanted to be a peaceful country, they wouldn't be so hostile towards other countries and they would stop with there intentions to invade countries with there plans of building up there military.
I will admit that i am a Chinese alarmist, and i feel that i have a right to be alarmed because of Chinas actions. Many people in my country and around the world feel the same way. Even my government feels the same way, we are having the largest military build up since world war 2 in response to china trying to become a military super power and expressing it's interest in invading countries such as Taiwan. Whats to stop China invading Australia for its resources in the future? Nothing.
Chinese economy has become the third largest in 2008,subsequently, her energy supply will rely on the seafreight more and more. In my opinion,the threat from China is non-exist not only for now but for the forseeable future. For most Chinese people, the politics is far away from their daily life. what they want is to earn more money and live a better life. and they have no interest in chanllenging the US's leadship in west Pacific.
The China's navy ranks around the 6th~7th place for now, she is the only one country that don't have aircrafter carrier in permanent 5. The military defence budget is also the lowest in major powers(except Japan), it accounts for 1.4~1.5% of the GDP. Unlike Soviet Union, China is paying more attention to domestic issues (such as unemployment, the increasing income disparity), the current doctrine of the CCP is to live peacefully and harmoniously with other nations. I mean, what the China is doing is more defensive, in case that the economic fruits they gained from hardworking is robbed by Wall street Jews.