By the sound of your tone, you love wars. USA = Wars right?

Well guess what, that is your greatest strength and your weakness.

Lets see how long the World tolerates your Warring-Ways buddy.

Doesn’t it appear the Chinese have chosen not to pursue the “arms race” path? Hence no huge navy?

Perhaps, China knows naval ships are beasts of the past. Where a dozen or so well designed ICBM’s can take out easily (yes I’m talking about carriers). How effective can a aircraft carrier be if it can’t even sail pass Haiwaii without being taken out with missiles?

Maybe China really means what she says, “A Peaceful Rise”…I honestly have lost all my faith in the USA. They have time and time again replaced governments against people’s will. Waged Wars with the most stupid absurd reasons…

First, it’s long been of interest to me that none of the *Chinese* names for the waters lapping her coasts include the characters for China: in Chinese the name of what we call the “South China Sea” in English translates, simply, as “South Sea;” nexr up is the “East China Sea” (in English), but the Chinese name translates as “East Sea;” the other two are the Yellow Sea (same name in Chinese) and the Bohai, the first part of the name (as we write it in English) is actually two characters that translate as “Rising Waters,” “Swelling Waters,” or either of those two names with “Sea” in place of “Waters.”

Yet China will point to the English-based first two names to justify it’s claims to those two seas — conveniently ignoring that neither sea’s Chinese name includes “China” (Zhong Guo, or 中国, meaning “Middle Kingdom”).

Second, as you undoubtedly know, China has flat declared sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, a claim extending far beyond standard maritime economic zone limits. Further, China has fairly recently raised the level of this demand in two ways: elevating it to “core interest” — on par with its claims to Tibet and Taiwan — and has applied to have her boundary drawn along the borders of the sea, in essence. Also, while it hasn’t made a comparable claim on the East (China) Sea, in the wake of the spat between China and Japan Beijing is insisting no formal maritime boundary exists between the two countries — and they actually do have some historical evidence on their side, but the history since the late 19th century is really, really complicated. Far too dense to summarize here. And there’s also evidence for exactly the opposite argument. (The first time I waded through the history, I tore at my hair and thought, “This must have taken place in one of OTHER dimensions physicist and astronomers love to blab about!”)

Thirdly, after China made its demands regarding the South (China) Sea, and told the U.S basically to stay out, the U.S. promptly dispatched the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and the destroyer USS John S. McCain through the sea directly to Vietnam, where they took part in the first-ever joint naval exercises between the U.S. and Vietnam. While the exercise had been long planned, the fact that Secretary of State Clinton visited Vietnam and gave a speech in which she made the point that those waters are vital to global maritime commerce and that many countries have a strong interest in seeing the area remain peaceful and open for maritime traffic makes me believe that for the U.S., the two ships’ main mission was changed to “Sail straight through; those are international waters.”

I actually have one more point, but have to say right up front I’m unsure of the accuracy of the reports. I’ve read that China is having considerable difficulties with both its “Chinese F-22″ and with the much-discussed “aircraft carrier killer” missile it reportedly has under development, to the point that neither is in active service yet. And the date for getting their under-construction aircraft carrier has been reported as slipping a bit — but that’s normal for such a major undertaking.

I’d have to look up some numbers, so I’ll use approximate ones, but compare, for starters, our two navies. China doesn’t have a single operational *carrier,* let alone a carrier battle group. We have upwards of a dozen (11 last time I read about it, as I recall). The Chinese navy today is largely a brown-water one, though they are making strides in moving to near-blue-water projection. As for submarines, they’re catching up — numerically, the important (and potentially worrisome) exception of the area of propeller technology. As for “China’s F-22,” I’ve read it’s likely more a 4th-Generation model, maybe even just a “3.5th” generation. Nor do they have anything remotely close to a B-2. Missiles? A couple of years ago I read in one of the Jane’s publications or a similar one that China was down to a relatively small number of ICBM’s capable of reaching the U.S. mainland: 18-20 was the widely-held (then) estimate among experts and intelligence folks. Could 18-20 ICBM’s wreak disaster on America? — Yes, of course. But China’s leaders aren’t idiots — they must know that our response would be massive and swift.

But even if they had the most modern arsenal right across the board, and even if they sent vast numbers of the PLA for training at places such as West Point, Sandhurst, etc. — assuming we’d agree to train them — it would take at *least* a generation for them to develop the sheer experience and expertise to become truly competent, in terms of confronting fighting a war. Don’t misunderstand me; China has some very fine military personnel, but even the very best cadet needs time, just as a military that hasn’t fought a war in over 30 years lack battlefield experience.

There is one area in which I do they present at least a potential threat, one that events of late apparently have demonstrated: attacking the Internet and all that implies. Whether or not a potential threat equals a clear and present danger, I have to leave that determination to our generals, admirals, and other experts to make. Yes, I do understand that were they to shutdown our power grid, with our communication system badly crippled, it would be as if a dozen continent-wide Hurricane Katrinas struck at once. And we know how that has gone for New Orleans.