The author has purposely avoided mentioning an important fact that:
China’s historical military spending were MINUSCULE as compared with other countries before 2000.
For examples;

1975: China $2B, US $370B, Europeans ($75B - $60B), Japan $25B.
1980: China $5B, US $338B, Europeans ($67B - $48B), Japan $30B.
1985: China $8B, US $540B, Europeans ($67B - $60B), Japan $38B.
1990: China $20B, US $527B, Europeans ($71B - $68B), Japan $47B.
1995: China $23B, US $411B, Europeans ($53B - $48B), Japan $57B.
2000: China $37B, US $395B, Europeans ($61B - $48B), Japan $57B.

China's spending has reached to the level as Europeans and Japan only since 2005. Even as up to today in 2016, China's "accumulative" spending is still MINUSCULE as compared with other countries.
(All data from SIPRI - Stockholm International Peace Research Institute).

What about the odd trillion dollars the Pentagon couldn't account for, shouldn't that be included? (2010: $1Trillion+)

Yet China is the world 2nd largest economy and in the not too distant future, she will be No.1.

I am basically trying to say that, because it takes a long, long time to see the effects of the military spending, China should have 2-digit spending growth every year at least for the next 20 years in order to really see the effects and catch up with these countries. China's military spending before 2000 was really MINUSCULE, it basically didn't have any military spending as compared with other countries.

Agreed

It's ok for the U.S spending so much money for their defense, their people is well feed. China is spending Billion of dollars while their people earning 10 dollars as coal miner a day. Their resto cooks their foods for their customers by using gutter oil. Chinese babies drank milk with melamine. Even their athlete importing foods like Meat, milk and rice from other countries because their meat are tainted with chemicals.

when China increase its military spending, the western propaganda media accuse China of destabilizing the region. But when China decrease it, the western propaganda says it is a new low. The fact is, China is spending its military budget according to its economy and fiscal situation, unlike the US who spent like crazy even though the economy went down the toilet. Who is the warmonger now?

Welcome to Asia Times, where, whatever the story, CHINA = BAD NEWS

China is growing at 6.9% - it's economy is not slowing. If I accelerate my car from 30 to 60, and then ease off a little as I go from 60 to 70, 70 to 75 and so on, that is not evidence of slowing down - it's evidence of Asia Times trying its damnedest to put a negative spin on it

apparently there is a rule that if China can't reach 8% growth, then China is doom. Where the western propaganda experts get that number from is still a big mystery to me. India with its population that is as big as China can live with less than 6% growth for decades, and that with much higher inflation than China too. But no, China can't live with anything less than 8% according to western propaganda. America can live with 2% growth, japan can live with 0% or even negative growth, but China with 6.9%? that must be apocalypse.

The author says: "This likely makes China the second highest spender in the world when it
comes to procurement and defense R&D – an estimated $47 billion in
2015. In other words, what China spends on equipment is more (or nearly
more) than the entire defense budgets of Japan, India, South Korea, or all of Southeast Asia."
Given that China's population is something like 10 times that of Japan, larger than India's, 27 times larger than South Korea and twice that of Southeast Asia, the failure to mention relative population sizes is either a severe oversight or a tell of propagandistic motives.
Others have already noted that the gap between the largest spender in the world and China is enormous.
Why is there no mention that the largest spender in the world spends more than China and all of the rest of Asia combined? With Europe thrown in to boot?

The Usual China bashing tripe. The Asia Times is just like CNN, The BBC, and the New York Times, not a day can go by without the usual Russia and or China bashing article. But I guess thats necessary when you are supporting the criminal oligarchy that owns the Western World now. And if you were to subtract the trillion dollar debacle that is the F35 from the US defence budget ( because it will never be able to be used in combat accept say in Somalia or to bomb the crap out of some Ferguson Protestors ( because they do not have an airforce) it does not really count as an investment in the US armed forces. Just money out of the bodget that was flushed down the drain.

Concentrated density and not low density counts. The crunch is China can defend China with ease unlike before these Barbarians think they can conquer a country at their whims and fancies.

Article says " Today, only the United States spends more than China on defense."
That is a gross understatement since the US spends around 601 billion (down from 610 billion dollars) dollars on our military (but for all the wrong reasons). We have to take into account 1 thousand bases, where a good deal of them need to be closed.

I guess, when Mongols owned more than half of the world, Mongols must have much more military bases than what the US has today. But, where is Mongol Empire now?!

Well lets deal with the US a thousand years from now if you are going to bring examples a thousand year ago to make your point.

One thousand years?! No empire could last that long in history especial for a evil empire as evil as the US. It will be destroyed and disappear from the history soon, very soon.

You are gleeful and not "afraid" so cut that out
and
If you are going to drag the uncivilized Mongol hoards invading the world a 1000 years ago as an example
then
do the same for the US. There is no similarity between the mongol hoards and modern day America. In that sense you have to be delusional and if so you do not know the nature of the US to make such a prediction.

The similarity between Mongol and American Empires was a pretty hot topic couple of years ago. It got some attention from the geopolitics analysts around the world. Even the Americans picked it up and tried to put it in use. For example, the US propaganda and destabilization outfit “American Culture Center”("ACC") cooperated with "Mongolian National University" held a panel discussion on this topic in Ulaanbaatar. At that time, Americans was trying everything to instigate the "nationalism" in Mongolia to against the Russian influence. But it turned out without too much success, LOL!

Interesting.
I Know of the "American Age" since the last true "Empire" was the Soviet Empire. and the classical last Empire was the British Empire that started to unravel around 1947..... with the help of FDR. before that was the Ottoman Empire that was taken apart around 1916.
The American Age defined a world but did not fit into the sense of an Empire. No Emperor nor an Empire of holdings like that of the Soviets or the British. anyway it is what it is.

That was what Mongol scholars tried to point out: There are many similarities (in military power, for example), but the major “difference” is mass propaganda (“brain wash” or “soft power” as called today) of the empire. Americans are extremely good at using the modern methods of mass propaganda. Another difference is when Mongols didn’t force their religion (Buddhism), language and political system on other people. On the contrary, Mongols always accepted other people’s civilization in order to be good ruler. If Mongol acted like Arabs, Spaniards or Britons after them, then we all speak Mongolian today.

The Mongols hoards were not Buddhist till they invaded China. they were not Muslim till they invaded Muslim nations. the Indian word "Mughal" is a corruption of the word Mongol. the Persian "Mughal empire was Muslim. the Mongols who invaded Russia were I believe Muslim too.
The "white Huns" that invaded Buddhist India were Mongol hoards.
to compare their barbaric destruction and nomadic ways to the US is stretching it a bit.

grow up, Bernard - "Mongol" is a derivation of the Sinhalese verb "Mavis" - "to be a slut"