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ays after hosting a summit with the leaders of the 10-member ASEAN bloc, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe'€™s Cabinet approved a national security strategy and increased its defense budget by 5 percent over the next five years, in a clear move against China'€™s harsher stance on the East China Sea.

Smaller nations in Southeast Asia must anticipate spiraling tensions as China may also flex the same muscles to support its sovereignty claim on the South China Sea.

According to the Associated Press, the program for 2014-2019 includes the acquisition of surveillance drones, anti-missile destroyers and other equipment as Japan'€™s defense priority shifts from its northern reaches to the East China Sea, where Tokyo and Beijing are embroiled in a territorial spat over some uninhabited islands.

Japan certainly has its reasons to want to strengthen its military power, which had caused extreme devastation as well as countless human casualties to its Asian neighbors before and during World War II. There is a rising trend in Japan that people increasingly feel powerless against China, not only in terms of its economy, but also regarding its own existence. Thus, very fertile soil has been provided for many Japanese leaders, eager to increase the country'€™s military capabilities.

Chinese leaders including President Xi Jinping fully realize the positive and negative impacts of its military'€™s higher profile, as a result of its increasing economic power. The loud public diplomacy is a well measured tactic to appease domestic politics, as well as to increase its global leverage in its attempts to match the US as the sole superpower in the world.

China in the meantime has also sent alarming signals to ASEAN members because four of its members '€” Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines '€” also have overlapping sovereignty claims with China on several islands in the South China Sea.

It is hard to imagine what would happen if China also issued a similar unilateral rule restricting air and/or sea passages around these waters.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the Philippines on Tuesday to discuss defense and security issues. '€œThey will certainly discuss the specific issues pertaining to the South China Sea,'€ a senior State Department official said, as quoted by Reuters.

No party will come out on top in any military race in East Asia and in Southeast Asia. The likelihood is that everyone will probably lose in some way.

China and Japan are certainly aware of this.