BEIJING, Dec. 26 -- A peace-cherishing and confident United States should not have found its allies' dual-use technology businesses with Beijing such a headache.

The United States has recently been "feeling the sting" as some of its closest allies are reportedly "hemorrhaging valuable defense technology to China," Tokyo-based The Diplomat magazine wrote on Tuesday, as some Western media kept making a fuss about the French and German diesel engines inside Chinese subs and British propulsion and radar technologies equipped on Chinese fighters, among others.

It is even more thought-provoking that a top Israeli defense official was reportedly forced to step down after Washington was furious about an Israeli decision to "sell military equipment to China."

The European Union officially embargoes arms shipments to China, and Beijing has been urging Brussels to lift the measure. But anyway, dual-use technologies, including diesel engines, are not listed as banned.

No matter what, it is in the need and interests of China, a peaceful nation, to develop its defense capabilities on its own and through legitimate international cooperation with the ultimate goal of protecting its own people. It is also understandable that global defense firms are attracted by the market China offers.

Such consensual businesses need no backseat driver. And should Washington understand Beijing's development rightly, it will feel nothing but easy.

Yet the reality is far from being so relaxed. Imagining China as a foe at present and in the future, some of Washington's elites tend to be uptight about any of China's national defense moves.

Besides spying, they never lose a chance to challenge China's rational and legal decisions like the creation of the Air Defense Identification Zone over the East China Sea, which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said last week Washington would not recognize. Later, he pledged to shore up naval aid to southeastern Asian countries, apparently taking aim at China's rising sway in the region.

Without true aspiration for and confidence in peace, a country may easily develop a suspicious mind or be oversensitive about others' behavior.

Maybe before finding fault with others' national defense efforts, it is helpful that some U.S. policymakers rummage through the Pentagon's archives and see how many of U.S. arms deals have actually contributed to peace and stability in other parts of the world.