The top US soldier in the Pacific suggested on Wednesday that China was spending too much on its military, noting that the world's most populous country faced no imminent threat and war with Taiwan was unlikely.
Admiral William Fallon, commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Command, also dismissed assertions that the United States was seeking to contain China's economic and military emergence.
"I don't see a particular threat to China, so military capabilities expansion seems to me ought to be commensurate with the growth and development of a country," Fallon told a news conference in Beijing.
China has been gradually overhauling its military - reducing troop numbers, revamping tactics and training and buying Russian destroyers, missile systems, diesel submarines and a slew of jet fighters, including 24 Su-30s for which Beijing paid $1 billion.
The defence budget has grown in double digits almost every year, outpacing China's rapid economic growth.
Analysts say Beijing has stepped up diplomacy with its neighbours, wary of the US military presence in Central Asia since the September 11 attacks on the United States.
But Fallon dismissed assertions that the United States was trying to contain China. "That's nonsense," he said.
Pressed if he viewed China as a military threat, Fallon raised a half-empty glass and said: "People have a tendency to always look at things one of two ways. This is almost full or it's almost half-empty. I choose to take the positive, optimistic view that we can make almost anything we want of relationships."
The Pentagon said in a report in July it was concerned about China's military modernisation and economic might and feared that a changing balance of power in Asia could threaten self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.
But Fallon said the risk of conflict between China and Taiwan was low due to their close economic ties, noting that China had just begun allowing Taiwan airliners to pass through its air space.
"I look at the interaction between the two entities, between Taiwan and China, the economic sphere and personal sphere, you have to wonder, I wonder ... how anybody can be thinking about a military type of resolution here," Fallon said.
Communist China has viewed Taiwan as a breakaway province since the end of the civil war in 1949, when the defeated Chinese Nationalists set up a government there. Beijing has vowed to attack the now-democratic island if it formally declares statehood.
Washington, which switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing under a "one China" policy in 1979, is the island's main arms supplier and has pledged to do whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself.
"US policy is unchanged ... We support a 'one China' policy, we support maintenance of the status quo and we support the eventual resolution in peaceful means," Fallon said.
"At the end of the day, it seems to me that Taiwan is very clearly a political issue and that's where it ought to be, not a military issue," he said. "We ought to be continuing to encourage the peaceful resolution of the situation."
Fallon is visiting China for the first time since taking over as Pacific commander-in-chief in February to boost bilateral military exchanges and reduce tensions between Washington and Beijing that flare up from time to time.
US Defence Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld is expected to visit later this year. His Chinese counterpart, Cao Gangchuan, plans to visit the United States but no dates have been announced.
Fallon met Generals Liang Guanglie and Guo Boxiong on Tuesday and was due to meet Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Wednesday before heading to the southern province of Guangdong en route to Hong Kong.