As China has kept increasing its overall national strength along with its rapid economic growth in recent years, people begin to hear the urge that "China should become a responsible big nation." As a responsible big nation, how big its responsibility should be? It is no easy to answer this question however, since there are relevant matters everywhere. When terrorism was imperiling people on a global scale, someone vehemently demanded China should cooperate with the international community to jointly respond to its threat; when natural calamities occurred, the international communities asked China to grant humanitarian aid or assistance and, when there were crises raging in Asia or elsewhere in the world, people again required it to dissolve them with its growing influence.

To compare with its global responsibility, China has still a great domestic role to play. It is no trifle from any perspective to guarantee the right of its 1.3 billion-strong people for survival and development. And compared with developed countries, China, still a developing nation, is faced with more problems, such as those pertaining to energy security, information security and trade security. Even the most cardinal issue concerning its own national reunification still calls for an urgent solution. Though termed as internal responsibilities, any overall issues China is facing with can be said to be the global ones as it has almost one fourth of the total global population.

Such being the case, China's responsibilities are real great.

Any nation cannot take up its responsibility provided it is short of strength and, if it wants to take up more responsibilities, it needs more strength to back it up. The strength we are talking about here includes a country's national defense power. Nevertheless, whenever China has taken steps and made any progress in its national defense construction, there are always uproars or hubbubs to censure it for building up its national defense power.

Someone says the progress China makes in the science and technology of its national defense has been too fast with an inclined trend for an accelerated pace. But he does not know that the fast growth of its national strength is built on the existing basis of a low level. For a prolonged period of time, China has missed many lessons and, to make them up, it has to pace up and make its speed faster than the normal speed. Otherwise, the missed lessons could never been made up. Compared with the advanced world standards, China is now achieving something that had already been available in other (advanced) countries decades ago.

Someone cites China's national defense as not transparent enough. As a matter of fact, information in intelligence is equal to power in the current information age. A nation with a mightier national strength is better able to acquire the intelligence information from its adversary and has a much larger and more spacious space to manoeuvre for the release of such information. Conversely, a nation with a weaker national strength needs a stricter, higher degree of classification of its information, because it is almost impossible for any country to release or publicize its own defense information without any reservation. In fact, as a matter of fact, an speedy transparency of China's national strength has so far overtaken that in any of other spheres in the country.

Some others say the development of China's national strength has violated or broken the regional balance of power. Balance itself is in a dynamic and relative state. In the contemporary world, the national spending of an individual country can equal the combined sum of several nations' national spending; a single nation can send forth war thereat to several countries or even an entire region. Can such a power said to be in a state of equilibrium? Indeed, only by doing away with the original equilibrium, the establishment of a more balanced equilibrium will then be facilitated.

Looking back, where do these voluble and gesticulating talks really come from? They have definitely come from a nation leading or steering trends in the development of military science and technology globally, and from a nation of a super-powerful military might with its military deployment spreading worldwide. Some one is fussing about and even criticizing China for developing its third-generation bombers whereas it has started to quip its most sophisticated fourth-generation bombers itself. In these circumstances, people concerned should not but think and rethink about the real intention that has been harbored behind such alarms and fusses.

By People's Daily Online, and its author Chen Hu, the executive chief editor of the "World Military Affairs Magazine"