"China's rise over the past more than 10 years is not peaceful. Their military expansion has not only threatened Taiwan but the region and the world," Chen said.

His remarks followed Tuesday's annual report by the US Defense Department, which said China's defense build-up could tip the military balance against Taiwan and pose a credible threat to other armies in the region.

"The report unreasonably attacks the modernisation of Chinese national defense and rudely castigates China's normal national defence constructions and military deployment," China's Vice Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said.

"The report overlooks facts, endeavours to spread the 'China threat theory', rudely interferes with China's internal affairs and foments discord between China and other countries."

He said Beijing had lodged a protest with the US embassy in the Chinese capital, which prompted a response from the White House.

"We're committed to peace and stability in the region but that should not be viewed as us viewing China as a threat," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Wednesday.

"We do have concerns about the size and pace of China's military modernisation and it's important for us to pay close attention to it," he said.

The report said China has deployed 650-730 mobile short range ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan and is adding about 100 missiles a year. "The cross-strait military balance appears to be shifting toward Beijing," it said.

Chen defended the Pentagon assessment as did Taiwan's defense ministry spokesman Liou Chih-jein, who told AFP the report "was not a surprise at all."

But Taiwan's two major opposition parties, which both favor improved ties with Beijing, said the United States -- Taiwan's leading arms supplier -- had exaggerated China's military threat in order to sell more weapons.

"The purpose is evident. The United States made it clear at the end of the report, asking Taiwan to purchase more weaponry," Lin Yu-fang, parliamentarian from the opposition People First Party, told reporters.

Relations between China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, have worsened since Chen was elected president in 2000, breaking the nationalist Kuomintang's 51-year rule.