Don't believe every American military lobbyist looking for enemies to get more business. These are the same people who sometimes use PPP when estimating military budgets. Several years ago, some American agencies actually estimated that China's military spending was nearly $200 billion when it was closer to $60 billion at the time. If you applied these same guesstimates to today, the PPP military spending according to these "experts"...lol...would be around $300 billion! With these sorts of jokers in influential positions, is it any surprise why the US is constantly being embarrassed and making military blunders? It's amazing how Americans are so easily frightened into paying for wasteful military pork while protesting wasteful spending. It's hilarious yet disturbing.
Of course, you should take into account the differences in purchasing power when taking into account the defence spending between China and US.
Fact is that every dollar will equate to a lot more military power in China than in the US. The two main reasons is that Chinese military personell can be paid less than their US counterparts and also that equivalent equipment costs much less in China than in the US.
That 240 billion or so by 2015 will actually equate to around 400 billion dollars in US terms.