China should double the amount of money it spends to build nuclear weapons to counter the United States' "military arrogance" and the patently anti-China views held by U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.

Reinforcing military power is China's "most urgent task," argued the state-owned and stridently ultra-nationalist Global Times, which is owned by the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

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"China's defense spending and defense capabilities cannot threaten the United States at all, and Trump's declaration in relation to the 'One China' policy has amply demonstrated U.S. arrogance," said an editorial in the Global Times.

"This kind of arrogant position originates from the military superiority of the United States."

The U.S. continues to be the biggest defense spender by far, and has set aside over $622 billion for this purpose in 2016. That represents some 40% of total global defense spending in 2016.

On the other hand, China's publicly acknowledged defense spending for 2016 comes to $192 billion. Some western defense analysts claim China has a habit of understating its total defense budget and that the true figure might be as much as 50 percent higher.

Even then, U.S. defense spending will still be three times that of China's. China is the world's second largest spender on defense.

For every dollar China spends on defense, the U.S. spends $2.77.

China's defense spending, however, is expected to jump to $233 billion in 2020 from $123 billion in 2010.

The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the world's total military spending of $1.6 trillion in 2015. Its defense spending is larger than all of the next seven nations combined. China is number two on this list.

India is also on a defense spending spree. For 2016, India had a defense budget of $4 billion, making it one of the world's top five defense spenders.

India is rapidly modernizing its military and is spending huge sums to do so in the face of China's military unrelenting military build-up, as well as the threat posed by neighboring Pakistan -- China's top ally in Asia.

Tagschina, Nuclear weapons, defense spending, Global Times, United States