China has nuclear weapons and the third-largest military budget on the planet; mounts invasion exercises directed at Taiwan
China has nuclear weapons and the third-largest military budget on the planet; mounts invasion exercises directed at Taiwan, and fires the occasional missile as a warning shot at them; has bought into the European satellite guidance system known as Galileo, which has a military dimension; maintains a standing army of several million; and is currently deploying 4,000 troops in Sudan, the first Chinese imperial venture for several centuries.
It doesn’t take a Clausewitz to realize that something with most alarming implications for everyone is going on in that Communist state. At an Asian security conference in Singapore, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld did what he’s good at, and asked a simple question: Since nobody threatens China, what is all this military expansion about? He went on to say that ultimately China will need to embrace some form of open, representative government. Beijing’s delegate at the conference asked whether Rumsfeld truly believes that the United States feels threatened by the “so-called emergence of China,” as he put it in the deadpan style that has served Chinese diplomats so well for so long. Well, yes, actually, and in the years to come successive defense secretaries, whoever they are, are going to have to take up where Rumsfeld left off.