Should we be concerned about China's increased defense spending?

CW5 Scott Montgomery, Our nation's $ spending concern should mandate some "fund matching along with # of boots on the ground. America cannot support these socialist type regimes forever.

We funded Europe and the Balkans after the WW II where we funded everything to include our young men.

Somewhere - sometime someone else needs to step into the voids. If they don't care, why should the United States?

I had a nice long conversation about this with a couple of my Soldiers on shift the other day.

It doesn't matter right now how much they spend on equipment, it matters how much they spend on training. From what I am seeing most is going to give the perception that they are a growing hegemon. If you don't have the ship captains that know what they are doing in both the littoral and blue water areas with big ships how do you expect to operate effectively with them. This is one of the areas that the Germans got more right earlier than the rest in the Interwar years. They focused on training first, that way when they had(or forced) the build-up of the military budget they had trained crews and highly trained trainers. If you put the equipment before the trained operator you are putting the cart in from of the horse in my opinion. You may be able to train the horse to push it, but it isn't going very far or very fast. Where as you saw what the Germans did at the outset of WWII, the blitzkrieg into Poland was planned, trained, and executed many times over before the right tanks had even come on line. If China was focusing in this direction then I would be worried.
Also, I think the internal strife and regional issues will affect China long before they become a credible threat to the U.S. In the littoral areas of China (read 50miles from the coast) there is much less strife and the government has a reach over society. Once away from this area the internal fissures of society are slowly dividing the population.
With respect to the regional issues, along with the land disputes there are huge issues that will come to a head in the next five years with respect to water rights between India and China. The Himalayas are a great source of water for nearly 1/3 of the worlds population and with both countries growing that has the potential to become the next conflict spark.

Yes, we should be concerned, but we definitely shouldn't loose sleep over her. She is becoming belligerent, but every rising power has done that. She is making sure the world knows there's a new kid on the block. She also has legitimate concerns about security. China's economy depends on trade, so it's not surprising at all that she's focusing on the sea and securing her access to it. She has a large Moslem population and with the unrest in the Moslem world as well as the fact that she borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan, it would be foolish for her not to take her security seriously. In short, I think we should keep a cautious eye on her, but so far her moves have been of the kind we would expect from a country moving from isolation to a world economy.