The China Debate

by: Shawn Bradley

According to China's national people's congress, China increased the military budget by 17.8 % in 2007 which is about 45 billion dollars; the single greatest increase in military spending by China in the last few years(washingtontimes). There are those in America who strongly believe that China is building up there army so that they can challenge the United States as a military super power. Throughout the web there are plenty of articles that give examples and statistics to show the increase in construction of military technologies in China within the past three to four years such as: 29 modern submarines, including 13 super-quiet Russian-made Kilo class subs and 14 Chinese-made Song and Yuan class diesel electric submarines as cited by Tkacik Jr.( The Washington. "Chinese Military Superpower? - Washington Times." Washington Times - Politics, Breaking News, US and World News. Web. 04 Oct. 2011.) Within this article it is pointed out that the Chinese would like the U.S as well as the rest of the world to believe that their progressive developments are just part of a peaceful rise, and has nothing to do with military superiority, in agreement with Tkacik Jr. Condoleeza Rice observed that the United States must include China in the international economy before it becomes a military superpower. These stats could easily convince a person that China is slowly

trying to becoming a world military leader; however, there are those who think otherwise and believe that China is a ticking bomb waiting to explode. Though most analyst and government officials would agree China is on the rise dramatically in terms of expanding their military, some would argue that this label emerging superpower is just a scare tactic by the media and that China is actually a basket case, an accident waiting to happen. One author who agrees with this argument is Samuel Blecheir who believes that all this talk about China's military advancements is just propaganda (Bleicher, Samuel A. "China: Superpower or Basket Case? | FPIF." Foreign Policy In Focus | International Affairs, Peace, Justice, and Environment. Web. 04 Oct. 2011). In the article China: superpower or basket case? He says that China is more so reconstructing, trying to develop their political, economic, and social agendas for the country. Samuel claims that the west just has a fixation on the comparison between the U.S economy and the Chinese economy, when we should be preparing for China to have some sort of meltdown or fall like the Soviet Union did. Edward Wong would like to agree with Tkacik Jr's strong belief in large Chinese construction and that China will soon be a powerful leader within the next 30 years. Throughout the article Chinese military seeks to expand its Naval

power, Wong states that China is preparing to launch their navy well outside the coast of China; this expansion is known as the Far sea defense. Much like Tkacik Jr. Wong points out this movement of the Chinese navy and military moves way beyond defensive, and the obvious truth is that China will soon become a military leader(Wong, Edward. "Chinese Military Seeks to Extend Its Naval Power." Latest Articles. Web. 06 Oct. 2011)..

In my opinion the argument on both sides is sound; however, I believe the statistical information given by the majority of government officials strongly out ways the opinion of those who choose to look the other way. It is clear that China is building something of great importance, because of the limited relationship we have with China we wont truly know until they have completely developed their military, but to sit back and nonchalantly call it propaganda is foolish. A country that has over 1 billion people is very capable of developing and becoming a military superpower. It seems a little farfetched to think a self-pronounced communist government would openly tell the United States of their actual plans for military expansion. Even within the American media their has been a controversial commercial that showed a Chinese professor teaching history class in the year 2030 in China; it shows images of all the all the previous empires that

fell, the last of them was the United States. The class begins to laugh along with the class as he tells them how foolish these great empires once were, and how China capitalized on that foolishness. The commercial was taken off the air. America knows that China is on the rise for power, to call it a basket case country simply ignorant.