Steven Lee Myers, WRAL/New York Times: China, shoring up its navy, muscles into pacific
DALIAN, China — In April, on the 69th anniversary of the founding of China’s navy, the country’s first domestically built aircraft carrier stirred from its berth in the port city of Dalian on the Bohai Sea, tethered to tugboats for a test of its seaworthiness.
“China’s first homegrown aircraft carrier just moved a bit, and the United States, Japan and India squirmed,” a military news website crowed, referring to the three nations China views as its main rivals.
Not long ago, such boasts would have been dismissed as the bravado of a second-string military. No longer.
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WNU Editor: When I think of the Chinese military .... it is not what they have today that bothers me, it is what they will have 10 - 20 years from now that concerns me. They are determined to have the most powerful navy in the Western Pacific and beyond, and if trends continue they will definitely be able to match the US Navy.
yeah yeah.. been hearing that now for years.. now that their production costs are skyrocketing, their gdp is falling, and the first ships are starting to collect rust, lets see if they can maintain it all.. building a navy at the height of your fiscal success is one thing, but now that it's going downhill and fast, it will only be a matter of time until they have to scale back. THIS, TODAY (maybe 1-2 years out as some ships are still in the dry docks) is the height of Chinese reach.. 10 years out from now and the first ships will have been scrapped, 20 years out and they probably at par of Japan again haha
ReplyDeleteI don't think peace will prevail in the Western Pacific for another 10 years.The chinese and the americans will settle this sooner rather than later.
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