I find it instructive whenever people warn of an impending China threat to compare defense budgets. China is, even if you triple their official budget, less than $100 bn. The latest U.S. defense budget request comes in at $481.4 bn --- and this completely excludes the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns at $140 bn.

Frankly we should welcome China attempting to compete with us as a conventional peer. They will never match us and will end up wasting enormous resources trying to. Unfortunately I doubt they're that stupid.