The massive search launched for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has proved how important it is for China to upgrade its military. China had to deploy four warships, four coast guard vessels and far from its coasts to search for Flight MH370, which went off the radars after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing after midnight on March 8. The Chinese media have described the deployment as the largest Chinese rescue fleet ever assembled.

Seen in this light, the 12.2 percent increase in China's military spending for 2014 is not huge. The draft budget report submitted to the National People's Congress (or the national legislature) for review says the defense expenditure should be increased 12.2 percent to 808.2 billion yuan ($131.4 billion) this year.

The growth in China's defense budget should be seen as a "compensatory" rise. After the reform and opening-up was launched in the late 1970s, most of China's limited resources were pressed into economic construction while defense expenditure fell for more than 10 years.