BEIJING: China's defence minister has put aside diplomatic tact and said the country's military will prepare itself for "military conflict in every strategic direction" in the next five years. The military will speed up modernization and development of equipment, he said."We may be living in peaceful times, but we can never forget war, never send the horses south or put the bayonets and guns away," defence minister Liang Guanglie said in an interview published in state-backed newspapers. China's pace and scale of military modernization and construction of military related infrastructure has caused alarm among neighbours like India, South Korea and Japan.