TorontoNoctis
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The simple truth is, a country will never gain any trust from its neighbors by not building a strong military. They will assume you're peaceful not because you don't want to use force but rather it's because you don't have force to use.
Only by building a strong military while showing restrains in employing it one can gain neighbors trust. So I'll be a contrarian here and calling the recent Chinese naval modernization efforts a long-term trust-building measure.
Of course there's still the task of showing restrain, which is far more difficult than building a navy, especially when one lives in a neighborhood as rough as China's.
If your country is small enough or poor enough it isn't worth the effort to build a powerful military. Instead the best safety is to be like the Swiss and declare total neutrality, then build national redoubts in mountains/forest/jungle. Very determined light infantry armed with effective MANPADS and anti-tank weapons is all you really need, first in case they ignore your neutrality and invade so you can cede the cities and go into the redoubts, second to police the huge numbers of refugees from both sides like the Swiss did.