Why would anyone expect anything less from China. Blossoming economic powers have always increased military spending. We should expect China to become the second largest military power as well. One thing that should be noted here is that China's ability to project power globally is and will be severely limited by its lack of a deep water navy.

If and when they do get one, they will have to cope with being hemmed in by U.S. allies Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the Philipines. India, on the other hand will become a grater naval power based on its Geo strategic position dominating the major shipping lanes from Europe and the Middle East to the Far East.

As far as force projection is concerned, China is not well placed to use its military power except in the high tech realm and this they are far, far behind the U.S. whose military budget dwarfs China's.
China is a topological nightmare being additionally hemmed in by the mountain ranges radiating for the Pamir Knot and their Western desert areas. China needs to spend fantastic sums amount of money to simply modernize its enormous land forces and disrupt American space based assets.

Outside of strategic Nuclear weapons, China has a long way to go before it can be considered anything other than a regional power.

We should keep an eye on this but it is not a pressing issue.

India is growing just as fast, as its population is similar, but its comparative defense budget is about 1/5 of China's real defense budget per the RAND calculus (2006 budget: $20.11 billion), is rising less rapidly, and is a reliable figure from a democracy with public audit.

That should read: "Blossoming economic powers have always increased military spending, and dictatorships who do not need to provide the same level of public services will divert far more money to their military."

China's banks are de facto bankrupt given the size of non-performing loans to state industries, and it has no meaningful pension system for its elderly. The money going to its military, and militarism, is the product of a sustained assault on its poor.

Fortunately, as Winds' scenario piece also notes, China's geographic position is problematic, and they do have something of an "and then what?" problem in executing the various steps of their strategy. Unfortunately, as our scenario piece also notes, systems like China's tend to be far more likely to use what they build, and there are other disturbing trends in play as well as positive ones.

"What, me worry?" is a facile approach to a trend like this one.

India is growing just as fast, as its population is similar, but its comparative defense budget is about 1/5 of China's real defense budget per the RAND calculus (2006 budget: $20.11 billion), is rising less rapidly, and is a reliable figure from a democracy with public audit.
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I agree. I was not trying to say that India was spending as much as China. I used them to show that they in relation to China are placed in a geo-strategically better position.
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That should read: "Blossoming economic powers have always increased military spending, and dictatorships who do not need to provide the same level of public services will divert far more money to their military."
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Fine. I agree here, too.
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China's banks are de facto bankrupt given the size of non-performing loans to state industries, and it has no meaningful pension system for its elderly. The money going to its military, and militarism, is the product of a sustained assault on its poor.
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I do not think your view of China could be any more pessimistic than mine. I think it is an out of control freight train headed for disaster, politically, socially, economically and environmentally.
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Fortunately, as Winds' scenario piece also notes, China's geographic position is problematic, and they do have something of an "and then what?" problem in executing the various steps of their strategy.
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I think I said pretty much the same thing.
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Unfortunately, as our scenario piece also notes, systems like China's tend to be far more likely to use what they build, and there are other disturbing trends in play as well as positive ones.
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"What, me worry?" is a facile approach to a trend like this one.
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"We should keep an eye on this but it is not a pressing issue." Is a "What, me worry?" approach? That is a bit overwrought don't you think? It is like me calling you Chicken Little. It doesn't add much to the discussion.

Unfortunately, this is really, really serious.

The Chinese are already showing a great interest in the landing craft they would need to get to Taiwan.

The only up-side I can see is that George W. Bush's reconciliation between the United States of America and India is more likely to take hold and grow. You would have to to be a deeply prejudiced Indian leader to think that the United States of America is your biggest problem now.

China has a huge North Korea problem. NK is a drain on resources, military and economic. If NK continues in operation the drain continues. If NK fails then there is the problem of Koreans coming to China for improved economic possibilities. China has a tiger by the tail.

Re: White water navy. First you have to build aircraft carriers. Then you have to learn how to use them. Then you have to keep adding to the fleet. Barring all out war this is a 20 to 30 year process.

By that time China may be in great difficulty due to demographics. China has stopped reproducing.

Additionally China has great internal political problems. Cell phones are liquifying internal cohesion. Two words - flash mobs.

Another: Islam.

More: State Owned Enterprises (SOE). Military production is by SOE's which are overmanned and not rationally financed.

Oil. China has very little. It also depends on the USA to protect its lines of supply.

Pollution. Air so bad that some cities are obscured from satelittes by it. Life expectancy reduced by it. The desert is gaining on China. When GDP reaces a certain level normal countries start cleaning up. China is not cleaning up. The military has a higher priority.

Farmers vs the industrial coast. If China increases agricultural efficiency it will release a huge wave of manpower it has no way to absorb. If it doesn't increase efficiency it is wasting resources. There is already excess labor in the economy due to agricultural improvements. America went through this transition in the 20s and 30s. It was ugly and our economic base was better.

The pension system. Rich countries are already in trouble with this one. China is not rich.

No one even pays lip service to the Communist Party. Think USSR 1980.

China is a technology importer. It is an importer of high quality managerial resources.

China's leaders have not come this far only to stop now.

Chinese nationalism feeds militaristic expansionism and adventurism.

The problems with nonperforming loans and North Korea's desperate situation should make you more worried, not less.

China must invade Taiwan to free its growing navy from de facto blockade. North Korea will provide the diversion and plausible deniability by attacking Japan, S. Korea, or other US asset or ally.

If China cannot break out of its geographic constrictions, it will have difficulty winning over third world leaders in Africa and Latin America. The only question is when Taiwan is invaded, and how quickly China will then move to build power in other regional states.

#6 Richard,

The blockade is not de facto. It is potential.

In fact America is guarding China's lines of supply to oil. It may be a humiliation to China, but it is also an advantage to both sides.

TOC, points taken, and yes we were in agreement far more than not. The only place we really diverge (and it may be a small divergence) is the recommendation to watch vs. my stance which says begin active preparations on both military and diplomatic fronts. The latter is well underway, I'm happy to say, and has been one of the least noticed and most successful facets of W's Presidency.

I myself am not convinced Taiwan is worth defending, given that they seem questionably willing to defend themselves. Indeed, my personal belief is that Taiwan will fall to subversion, and is already a good ways along the road to that fate via bribed politicians who are blocking key defense modernizations (maritime patrol planes, anti-aircraft missiles, submarines, et. al.) with ever-changing excuses, even as China prepares its military for conquest. But Taiwan isn't the only place problems could arise, and having the Pacific well in hand is a critical linchpin of any strategy designed to limit the damage China might do.

China has enormous problems to overcome.

One being the necessity of feeding 1.25 Billion people every day. No mean feat.

Another with the absorption of the 6,000,000 people a month that have been moving to the cities from the country side over the past few years

Another, the effect of a downturn in the business cycle. Suppose China's growth rate slowed from 9 or 10 percent to 3 or 4. What would happen in terms of unenployment; 10 million, 20, 30, more?

It seems that some think that nothing can go wrong in China and that they are on a one way course towards confrontation with the United States and are hell bent on world domination. I doubt things are as simple as these comic book scenarios.

Even without the intervention of of the U.S. Fleet, China does not have the military resources or the logistical capabilities to land a 1MM man army on Taiwan and supply an army of occupation. Taiwan itself is not defenseless against a Chinese naval operation.

Want a scary Chinese scenario? They devalue the yuan. Now that is a threat.

"If China cannot break out of its geographic constrictions, it will have difficulty winning over third world leaders in Africa and Latin America."

Er, why? China's trade status with the US and political party stance already lean in favor of the emerging socialist parties in Venezuela and Nicaragua; they just need to send diplomatic agents to those countries to court and gain further rapport with the national leaders. They've already been that much since the mid-1990's and considering the amount of investments coming from China to these African and Latin American countries, they're succeeding on some level.

"China must invade Taiwan to free its growing navy from de facto blockade."

Again, why? China already has numerous seaports with sturdy harbors it can grant use to its military. Hong Kong to the south (which was well and very properly maintained to by the British up until 1997) as well as Macau, various coastal cities, and then the Beijing-Shanghai nexus covering the north. The US will not and really can't say anything about the Chinese moving ships up and down their coast lines. If it's sphere of influence you're talking about, they have that too. The American's sphere, of course, is much bigger and far reaching in scope, but if you remember back to your freshman world politics class, you'll remember who more or less ran which backyards during the Cold War. China's got pretty much most of South East Asia hemmed up until India.

"China does not have the military resources or the logistical capabilities to land a 1MM man army on Taiwan and supply an army of occupation."

No to the first part and a partial agreement to the second part, and a the third part is essentially miniscule to another overriding point.

1. The military resources are there: the industrial complexes exist to manufacture war materiel, the manpower is obviously present, and the western coastal areas being the prime areas of economic importance to China they've obviously got substantial military and transport system in place (there is numerous reports every year about the PRC repositioning and posturing forces on the coast opposite that of Taiwan).

2. As I said above, the military resources are there, but you hit a great point: the Chinese don't have a navy worth squat for force projection.

3. I said your third point succumbs to a more overriding and important point. The occupation of Taiwan is secondary to actually holding onto the damn island itself and not tangling with the Americans in the process. As you have pointed out, China does not possess the naval capabilities to keep supply lines going to maintain an invasion force on Taiwan. America would have a problem with China deciding to take over Taiwan and would likely intervene on Taiwan's behalf to main a balance of power in the region. Even if intervention was covert in nature. As the Chinese troop ships were steaming towards the Taiwanese costlines, a few well places hunter/killer submarines from the US Navy could make things very hard for the Chinese. "Oh, we're extremely sorry about the troops. These things do happen. Hit us hard during World War II."

#10 from Sean

I think our disagreement is in terms. In using military resources I was referring to its naval resources, which would have been more precise. China looks to me a bit like the Soviet Union in that it plays the Spartan land power to the American sea power. Only China's land based power is less threatening than that of the old Soviet Union in that it has no place to go.

I am also not at all sure that China would be able to launch a Normandy type invasion against Taiwan, even if the U.S. did not intervene.

I think the Chinese are less expansionist than most. Not because they are intrinsically more virtuous than others, but because experience with their own peculiar set of geographical and geophysical circumstances have taught them the limits of their power.

Han China, for the most part, has contented itself with being a hegemon in East Asia. Dominating the Region by absorbing those places it could, Manchuria, Sinkiang, Mongolia, Tibet, etc. and learning from failed advances into Indochina, Korea and Japan, starting 2,000 years ago.

What I worry most about when it comes to China is a dissolution of the Empire which happens periodically all throughout its history. I remember a quote by Deng Zhao Ping when asked by a reporter about the West's not liking the Crack down in Tien Mien Square. His answer "Ask the West how they would like 50 Million boat people."

These are the people with the second longest continuous history in the world and are in possession of the longest continuously existing political entity, China. They must have been doing something right.