Andrew Browne and Gordon Fairclough write on China’s military modernization and its implication for U.S.-China relations. From the Wall Street Journal:
The Pentagon views China as the country most likely, at some point down the road, to acquire the capacity to challenge the U.S. military on a global scale. The U.S. in recent years has moved to strengthen its forces in the Pacific and urged its ally Japan to do the same. Washington and Tokyo are working together to boost anti-missile defenses, to defend against threats from both North Korea and China. And some in the Defense Department talk up the “China threat” to justify greater spending on new weapons systems.
[…] However, many observers, both in China and the U.S., say that fear of China is exaggerated. China’s armed forces are still no match for U.S. firepower at sea, on land or in space. Many American security analysts — including former senior military officers — do not believe that China intends to take on the U.S., as the former Soviet Union once did. For now, China’s military falls back on a mix of high-tech weaponry, such as its new Jin-class nuclear-missile submarines, and low-tech stealth and cunning.
