| July 12, 2005: China's military build up has been big news for the last few weeks. This development was known all along by the military and defense industry media, but the story never broke big, until recently, in the mainstream media. Before that, it was something defense geeks were going on about, and not worth paying much attention to. The Chinese made little effort to hide their military buildup, with civilians, and tourists, able to move past bases where the new weapons, and military units, were in plain sight. As the Internet, and email, became more common in China over the last five years, more details of the Chinese buildup got out to more people in the West. Many Chinese scientists and engineers cultivated email contacts in the West, and freely talked about the military developments in China. They also talked about all the books being published in China that talked of the coming wars with the United States. These developments were reported in the West, but few news directors were connecting the dots. Now they have, and the story of China's military buildup is considered quite a scoop. |