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Mark Helprin on Chinese Expansionism
Snippet. RTWT ...Imagine then if China, as it easily could, were to double its GDP in the next eight or nine years, and, taking advantage of a parallel increase in gains per capita, double the defense share of GDP. It would then have (PPP) defense outlays roughly equivalent to ours. China, however, moves with great deliberation, and many signs suggest that it is aiming for parity in 20 or more years time and in synchrony with advances in technology and military doctrine. China is at risk if, as is its wont periodically, it runs off the rails into civil war, anarchy, or revolution. But the true counter-revolutionary import of the 11th Party Congress reforms of 1978 is that, unlike the former Soviet Union, China is making its transition to the free market in careful strides so as not to be forced backwards. Though neither ideal nor democratic, its incremental economic and policy choices are carefully calibrated, redolent of compromise, and configured for the survival and stability of the state. And the more time that passes, the more the development of its internal markets will protect its now mercantile economy from the gyrations of world markets. With its new economic resources China has embarked upon a military traverse from reliance upon mass to devotion to quality, with stress upon war in space, the oceans, and the ether--three areas of unquestioned American superiority. China is establishing its own space- based assets and developing the means to counter others. It would neutralize American strategic superiority as the aging U.S. arsenal is reduced and it augments its own. Its submarine program is directed to the deployment of its strategic force and denial of successively greater bands of the Pacific--eventually reaching far out into blue water--to the safe transit of American fleets. It sees America's advantage in informational warfare both as something to be copied and as a weak link that, by countermeasure, can be shattered. In short, it harbors major ambitions. Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-12-13 |
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