Chinese Missiles Are Transforming the Balance of Power in the Skies By Marc Champion 2018年5月8日 GMT+8 上午4:00
U.S. air dominance challenged by China, Russia technology
China’s new aircraft, combined with the latest air-to-air, cruise, anti-ship and Russian S-400 air-defense systems (considered the world’s best) “have made the ability of the U.S. to operate in contested areas very high risk,” said Tim Heath, a senior international defense researcher at Rand.
This shift isn’t just important for the U.S.. India has watched with trepidation as Russia supplies Beijing -- and Beijing supplies Pakistan -- with more sophisticated weaponry.
China and Pakistan have co-produced the JF-17 fighter since 2007, with Russia providing high quality engines. In March, Chinese media reported the JF-17 will be upgraded with active array radar, allowing it to detect and fire on targets from a greater distance. China air-to-air missiles viewed as world class by Pentagon
For a quarter century, the U.S. and its allies owned the skies, fighting wars secure in the knowledge that no opponent could compete in the air. As tensions with Russia and China surge, that’s no longer the case.
Rapid technological progress in China’s aerospace industry, particularly air-to-air missile systems fired from an aircraft, is changing the game for Western air forces and the global arms trade. It’s also altering the picture for China’s neighbors such as India.
Russia took the lead in modernizing its air force, and has been more willing to use it. In the longer term, however, China’s roughly $13 trillion economy and growing wealth mean it is likely to pose the greater strategic challenge for the U.S. and its allies. In 2017, Chinese defense spending rose by 5.6 percent in constant U.S. dollar terms, while Russia’s fell by 20 percent, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. China spent $228 billion last year and Russia $66.3 billion, SIPRI said.
“We had an environment where we could do whatever we wanted in the air, and what the Chinese have done is to say you no longer can,” said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. As a result, U.S. commanders now have to take into account potential loss rates for pilots and aircraft that they haven’t had to face since the 1980s.
The U.S. air force remains the strongest by far. Yet the Chinese advances come at a sensitive time, as the U.S. appetite to continue its role as global policeman fades. Meanwhile President Xi Jinping has set ambitious goals to dominate advanced industries like robotics and artificial intelligence and to assert Chinese interests in the disputed South China Sea and beyond.
The catch-up by Russia and China has been a long time coming, triggered in each case by shock at the ease with which the U.S. air force demolished opponents in the 1990s, according to Vasily Kashin, a specialist in military aviation at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics at the National Research University.
For China, that moment came during the first Gulf War, when an American air campaign swiftly crushed the Iraqi military, at the time better equipped than China’s. For Russia, he said, the wake-up came in 1999, when a U.S.-led bombing campaign forced Serbia to withdraw troops and tanks from its own province, Kosovo.
Taiwan (which China considers a province) has also been a factor for Beijing. The U.S. called in two aircraft carrier battle groups to support the island during a dust-up with China in 1996 and has provided $18 billion in arms since 2008.
China Rising U.S. still dominates, but China's defense spending is rising steadily
Some of China’s biggest strides are coming in air-to-air missiles, the weapons that for one or two million dollars can destroy a $150 million aircraft. That’s a cost efficient way of trying to level the playing field with the U.S.. China’s defense budget is well over three times as big as Russia’s or India’s, but still much lower than the $610 billion the U.S. spends, according to SIPRI.
In March, the U.S. Air Force awarded a half-billion-dollar contract to supply close allies with Raytheon Inc.’s latest long range air-to-air missile, capable of hitting enemy planes from 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. The Meteor, a new European equivalent, may be even more deadly. But China’s latest offering, the PL-15, has a greater range than either.
Airborne Warning The PL-15 also supports an active electronically-scanned array radar that makes evasion difficult for the most agile of fighter jets. Russia has yet to succeed in equipping its own missiles with the technology. When the PL-15 was first tested in public, then-U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command chief Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle was concerned enough to call on Congress to fund a response.
Another Chinese air-to-air weapon in development, provisionally known as PL-XX, would strike slow-moving airborne warning and control systems, the flying neural centers of U.S. air warfare, from as far away as 300 miles. At closer quarters, China’s new PL-10 missile is comparable to the best “fire-and-forget” equivalents, meaning any dogfight would likely end with a so-called mutual kill, a significant deterrent.
“In the United States we’ve been on holiday for 25 years and maybe a little bit more,” Michael Griffin, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, said in a recent address to the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank. “We failed to continue to fund the practices that had gotten us where we were, which was at the very top of the technological heap.”
Griffin said he was especially worried by Chinese and Russian progress in developing carrier-fleet killing hypersonic missiles that the U.S., as yet, lacks the space-based capacity to detect in time to shoot down. The planes to deliver China’s new armory of missiles have also improved dramatically, with new fleets developed from Russian air frames. This year, the air force is set to receive the last of 24 state of the art SU-35S fighters from Russia, while China has begun deploying the Chengdu J-20, a home-grown stealth fighter.
Combat modeling by think tank Rand Corp. found that China last year, for the first time, had achieved parity with the U.S. in air superiority for any conflict close to its mainland, including over Taiwan.
To be sure, China still has a long way to achieve conventional -- let alone nuclear -- parity with the U.S. at a global level. Its jet engine technology remains weak and reliant on Russia, while its suite of new weapons are largely untested in combat. So are its pilots, still considered inferior to their Western counterparts in training and tactical skills.
Yet Chinese pilots, planes and weapons don’t have to be better than their U.S. counterparts to radically change battlefield calculations. The J-20, for example, has poor engines and is thought by aviation experts to be more easily detected from the rear and sides than a U.S. F-22 “Raptor”. But it would be hard to spot on approach and has a large weapons bay capable of hiding anti-ship missiles. That makes it a considerable threat.
According to Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, Russia’s potential approval for China to resell its jet engines to Pakistan was the most frequent topic of discussion at weekly meetings of the National Security Council when she was assistant secretary to the NSC Secretariat from 2003-2007. If Pakistan’s jets were equipped with the new radar and China’s PL-10 missiles, now available for export, India’s aging Russian MiGs would struggle to compete, she said.
The arms sales are symptomatic of a much more worrying regional realignment of Russia – traditionally India’s biggest arms supplier – with China, said Rajagopalan, now head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi think tank. “The Russians are in a weak position now, and they feel it is better to be in the Chinese camp,” she said.
India last month put out an international call for bids for a $15 billion contract to provide 110 new combat aircraft. Pakistan has just over 100 JF-17s and is producing 25 new ones a year.
Beijing’s technological progress is also having knock-on effects beyond South Asia. China has moved from its traditional position as a provider of cheap small arms to poor nations, to become the world’s number three arms trader in volume terms. That includes the sale of armed drones to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other nations to which the U.S. declined to sell its Reaper drone technology.
Some missiles China developed with Russian help are now considered as good if not better than the originals, and are on the international market.
Russia, at least, isn’t overly concerned by competition from the expanding military capabilities next door, according to Kashin. “They are certainly a growing power,” he said of China. “But they are not omnipotent, and they are Russia’s partner.”
An interesting note is that the latest Chinese missile named the ''aircraft killer'' is capable of a 1,000 mile range and very inexpensive. The U.S. aircraft carrier with it's compliment of aircraft have a range of appox 500 miles. This of course puts the carrier in great danger if it contemplates entering Chinese coastal waters.
Be prepared for a call to further crank up military spending so the US can stay ahead of the Russia/China/Pakistan/Iran conglomeration.
It would help our cause if we didn't have to patrol the entire planet; and be the pit bull for NATO. We could have far superior equipment in all facets if we didn't have to operate, maintain, and upgrade so damn much of it.
Be prepared for a call to further crank up military spending so the US can stay ahead of the Russia/China/Pakistan/Iran conglomeration.
How will we do this? Remember those tax cuts you love so much? The U.S., like every other country uses taxes to pay for the military, if we upgrade the amount of money spent on the military we either have to cut something else or, raise taxes. Not very fiscally responsible.
It would help our cause if we didn't have to patrol the entire planet; and be the pit bull for NATO.
It would also be helpful if we didn't have presidents and, a Congress that didn't see us as the "pitbull" of the world and, insist on putting us in these situations. But, that's what happens when you have someone in the White House who has never served in the military or, fought in a war but, thinks that it's alright to put other people in danger for their agenda.
We could have far superior equipment in all facets if we didn't have to operate, maintain, and upgrade so damn much of it.
There again we can blame the people in charge of the purse strings, after all it was them that decided we needed a jet that required a spare engine and, wasn't worth the money spent on it.
Having a reliable ally in another part of the world helps America maintain its world-wide military prowess. Do not forget what was reported in a 1911 article about the value of Israel to America:
"Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig's observation 30 years ago still resonates today: "Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.""
The article goes on to report:
"The strategic synergy between the United States and Israel melds into tactical realities. U.S. troops train with their Israel Defense Forces (IDF) counterparts in aerial combat and special operations. U.S. Navy ships routinely dock in Haifa, Air Force planes refuel at Israeli bases"..."In addition to pre-positioning $800 million of arms and medical equipment in Israel, the United States guarantees by law its commitment to preserving Israel's "qualitative military edge," enabling the Jewish state to defend itself, by itself, against Middle Eastern adversaries."
We spend about three times as much as China is spending on defense. Time to make the big cuts needed to bring us up to speed with these other so call more advanced countries that do it for a fraction of the price.
We spend about three times as much as China is spending on defense.
And, yet, Trump and, the Republican Congress want us to spend more instead of cutting back on the defense spending. So, again I ask, were is the money going to come from?
The less they take from me the happier I am. Starving the breast is the only way we are going to get another sequestration act and spending cuts out of them.
The less they take from me the happier I am. Starving the breast is the only way we are going to get another sequestration act and spending cuts out of them.
Then tell them to pull our troops out of country's like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and, not to start any new wars, which is what Trump wants and, he doesn't care where it is.
All of those he inherited from Obama. Looks like we can't count on the Dems to cut the spending either. Ron Paul would have ended all of that back in 2008 and mothballed a large portion of the navy had he won.
And Obama inherited Iraq and Afghanistan from Dubya.
Those wars are only one of the many things I vehemently disagreed with Obama on. He should have pulled our troops out of both countries as soon as took the oath in 2009.
We could have far superior equipment in all facets if we didn't have to operate, maintain, and upgrade so damn much of it.
That is true, but we put ourselves in that position. So it would seem that we have to either accept it or do the unthinkable (to some people) and pull back from the numerous military missions we have.
All of those he inherited from Obama. Looks like we can't count on the Dems to cut the spending either. Ron Paul would have ended all of that back in 2008 and mothballed a large portion of the navy had he won.
Oh please, don't try putting all of Iraq and, Afghanistan on Obama, those wars were started by GW Bush and, Dick Cheney, at least Obama pulled out of Iraq as agreed upon by the Bush administration. Paul might have pulled out of the country's but, I kind of doubt he would have, he's great at rhetoric but, not much at action.
How will we do this? Remember those tax cuts you love so much? The U.S., like every other country uses taxes to pay for the military, if we upgrade the amount of money spent on the military we either have to cut something else or, raise taxes. Not very fiscally responsible.
Seems you didn't read my comment. Where did I ever state I was for more military expenditure? I stated a fact that Congress and the POTUS would be looking to crank up military spending even more. I did state that we should reduce the size of our military and use the money saved to increase the quality of the military. There is no reason that the US needs to continually retro fit ships, planes, and armor to maintain our vast size advantage. Quality over quantity- no extra spending needed.
It would also be helpful if we didn't have presidents and, a Congress that didn't see us as the "pitbull" of the world and, insist on putting us in these situations. But, that's what happens when you have someone in the White House who has never served in the military or, fought in a war but, thinks that it's alright to put other people in danger for their agenda.
You are correct; it would be helpful. So far the only POTUS not to involve us in a new conflict is Trump. Go figure. Though he has expanded US involvement in Syria. Clinton, Bush, and Obama loved using the US military abroad. As for Congress. The last wars they approved were Afghanistan and Iraq. Clinton never received permission for Kosovo; and Obama never received permission Libya, Syria, and reentering Iraq. Now, if you want to state Congress has been negligent in enforcing what control it does have in the War Powers Act- then I will agree.
There again we can blame the people in charge of the purse strings, after all it was them that decided we needed a jet that required a spare engine and, wasn't worth the money spent on it.
Yes, Congress is culpable in wasted money on the military. That goes for both the Republicans and the Democrats. All of them are more concerned about bringing home the pork to their states than an effective military.
I try to leave Israel out of things like this. They get far more in military and other expenditures than what your article lists. It is open for debate on whether the money spent is worth it or not. Is Israel a great military deterrent; or are they a friction point between the US and rest of the Middle East, and northern Africa?
“Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”
That is not taking into account the new 10 year $38 billion aid package signed by Obama.
in 2019, the U.S. will give Israel $38 billion over the next 10 years – $3.8 billion per year, which is $10.41 million per day .
This is in line with previous years. Last year the U.S. gave Israel $3.7 billion – about $10.14 million per day. In other words, the new aid package amounts to an increase of around $27 million per year .
Israel has long received more U.S. money than any other country. Some earlier disbursements were even larger when considered in today’s dollars.
This aid to Israel amounts to more than half of all direct military aid the United States provides worldwide.
The new agreement will slowly phase out a unique Israeli privilege: Israel’s exception to the requirement that all U.S. military aid be used on American goods and services (40% of military aid to Israel is currently exempted). This special exemption is supposed to end by the seventh year.
Considering that a new aircraft carrier costs around 13 billion (with US screw ups included), I wouldn't call Israel cost efficient.
Since you resent the support the US gives Israel, can you list for me the other countries that receive aid and the percentages of that aid that is required to be spent back in the US by those countries (and in fact whether that amount IS spent back in the US to fulfill that requirement)?
You, typically of those who bash Israel, totally ignore all the benefits that the US gains from Israel that the other recipients of US aid don't provide.
It is our money they are spending on US weapons. Do you understand that? They are spending only 40% of the military money we give them on US weapons; and that is set to go away. That doesn't factor in the amount of economic and other aid that we send them.
I am not anti Israeli; but I am not blind to their transgressions using our aid and military largesse. Those wishing the Palestinian problem to go away w/o recognizing it cannot do so w/o a viable state to exist in are a very large part of the problem. No, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon are not Palestine- and never have been. Trying to force people, especially taking into account historical tribal conflicts, into those countries is not going to work.
It doesn't escape the rest of the Middle East and Northern Africa that Israel wouldn't exist w/o the US propping it up.
So far the only POTUS not to involve us in a new conflict is Trump. Go figure.
This is the only part of your post that I have trouble with because, it doesn't include the word "yet", I think it is only a matter of time before he does start a war somewhere, N. Korea or, Iran would be my guess.
So you refuse to address what I said, and have to deflect. I will repeat it and make it a little darker in order to be more visible so maybe this time you will give me an answer IF YOU CAN!!!
Since you resent the support the US gives Israel, can you list for me the other countries that receive aid and the percentages of that aid that is required to be spent back in the US by those countries (and in fact whether that amount IS spent back in the US to fulfill that requirement)?
You, typically of those who bash Israel, totally ignore all the benefits that the US gains from Israel that the other recipients of US aid don't provide.
AND, the US has not given economic aid to Israel for years.
I've been living in Chongqing for almost a year and a half now. During that time I've witnessed about half a dozen sonic booms that for me feel and sound like a huge bomb falling close to me. At first I didn't know why what appears to be jets flying overhead many days each week, even at night sometimes, until I realized that there is an air base nearby and these have probably been training flights. Here is a photo I took about a year ago:
It doesn't look like a commercial passenger-carrying airliner to me.
Of COURSE there's an air base nearby, and the Americans were probably involved in its original construction. It's where the famed American Flying Tigers were based during WW2. I'm sure the Chinese must have expanded and improved it since then.
It seems to me that someone DIDN'T take Napoleon's advice: “China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.”
The Chinese people may never be happy about the Japanese, and having watched actual films taken by Japanese cameramen of the "Rape of Nanjing" I don't blame them. Your attempting to imagine the extent of the horrors they depicted can never match the actual atrocities.
The US, IMO is in danger of being left on the doorstep and China will soon be the power in much of Asia and beyond.
China, Korea and, Japan have had their differences in the past but, they see that there is a need to stand together, economically and, militarily, the past two world wars and, the wars in Korea and, Vietnam have shown them this, so, yes, I can see them joining together in this and, leaving not just us but, everyone behind.
China is both in trade and military strength gaining and in some areas surpassing the US and in reality there isn't a hell of a lot we can do about it.
Pulling out of trade agreements (TPP) was, IMO, a huge mistake.
I agree that China was moving on this long before Trump. IMO, Trump has put us in a bad spot regarding trade. Especially with pulling out of TPP along with the threat of tariffs on Chinese. This has backfired, in April the bottom dropped out of the orders for soybeans from China. They are buying mostly from Brazil. Wine was affected as were more farm products.
NO ONE wins in a trade war. Hopefully the opening round of this nonsense will be the last and both will move in another direction before major damage is done.
“China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.”
To late for that, we fed the beast now it's awake. Hong Kong should never have been returned to China and we should never have allowed them to become a manufacturing powerhouse. Now they're rich and powerful and we handed it to them. China does have a few major weaknesses though, they can't feed themselves without imports, they have no Oil and little natural gas, and they have a huge population that expects their lives to improve and they have no stomach for a war that would shutter factories and leave no fuel for civilian use and cause major food shortages. The fact is traditional Battle ships and aircraft carriers have been obsolete for 20 years, they're good for bullying small third world nations but they are easy targets for modern militaries. Subs are where the power rests now and in the future, they can hide and they can stop trade. What the USA needs is Submersible Aircraft Carriers.
We didn't give back Hong Kong or Macau. One was a British possession the other was Portuguese. Both reverted back to China via three separate treaties and a 99 year lease. If China wanted them back they could have taken them at any time prior to the transfer from England and Portugal. Could England, Portugal or the US done anything about it. I doubt if they could or would have.
There is something in China called the 100 year humiliation. That is when the colonial powers sacked China. The Chinese have long memories and that is a very painful time in their history for them.
China was going to become a power whether or not the US agreed/helped or not.
It interesting to note that the trade deficit with Hong Kong is in our favor since it is managed as a separate industrial zone than mainland China, as is Macau.
There is a large US ex pat community in Hong Kong around 80,000. All of this is good for the US.
In WWII the Japanese had underwater aircraft carriers.
An interesting note is that the latest Chinese missile named the ''aircraft killer'' is capable of a 1,000 mile range and very inexpensive. The U.S. aircraft carrier with it's compliment of aircraft have a range of appox 500 miles. This of course puts the carrier in great danger if it contemplates entering Chinese coastal waters.
Be prepared for a call to further crank up military spending so the US can stay ahead of the Russia/China/Pakistan/Iran conglomeration.
It would help our cause if we didn't have to patrol the entire planet; and be the pit bull for NATO. We could have far superior equipment in all facets if we didn't have to operate, maintain, and upgrade so damn much of it.
How will we do this? Remember those tax cuts you love so much? The U.S., like every other country uses taxes to pay for the military, if we upgrade the amount of money spent on the military we either have to cut something else or, raise taxes. Not very fiscally responsible.
It would also be helpful if we didn't have presidents and, a Congress that didn't see us as the "pitbull" of the world and, insist on putting us in these situations. But, that's what happens when you have someone in the White House who has never served in the military or, fought in a war but, thinks that it's alright to put other people in danger for their agenda.
There again we can blame the people in charge of the purse strings, after all it was them that decided we needed a jet that required a spare engine and, wasn't worth the money spent on it.
Having a reliable ally in another part of the world helps America maintain its world-wide military prowess. Do not forget what was reported in a 1911 article about the value of Israel to America:
The article goes on to report:
We spend about three times as much as China is spending on defense. Time to make the big cuts needed to bring us up to speed with these other so call more advanced countries that do it for a fraction of the price.
And, yet, Trump and, the Republican Congress want us to spend more instead of cutting back on the defense spending. So, again I ask, were is the money going to come from?
The less they take from me the happier I am. Starving the breast is the only way we are going to get another sequestration act and spending cuts out of them.
Then tell them to pull our troops out of country's like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and, not to start any new wars, which is what Trump wants and, he doesn't care where it is.
All of those he inherited from Obama. Looks like we can't count on the Dems to cut the spending either. Ron Paul would have ended all of that back in 2008 and mothballed a large portion of the navy had he won.
And Obama inherited Iraq and Afghanistan from Dubya.
Those wars are only one of the many things I vehemently disagreed with Obama on. He should have pulled our troops out of both countries as soon as took the oath in 2009.
That is true, but we put ourselves in that position. So it would seem that we have to either accept it or do the unthinkable (to some people) and pull back from the numerous military missions we have.
Oh please, don't try putting all of Iraq and, Afghanistan on Obama, those wars were started by GW Bush and, Dick Cheney, at least Obama pulled out of Iraq as agreed upon by the Bush administration. Paul might have pulled out of the country's but, I kind of doubt he would have, he's great at rhetoric but, not much at action.
Seems you didn't read my comment. Where did I ever state I was for more military expenditure? I stated a fact that Congress and the POTUS would be looking to crank up military spending even more. I did state that we should reduce the size of our military and use the money saved to increase the quality of the military. There is no reason that the US needs to continually retro fit ships, planes, and armor to maintain our vast size advantage. Quality over quantity- no extra spending needed.
You are correct; it would be helpful. So far the only POTUS not to involve us in a new conflict is Trump. Go figure. Though he has expanded US involvement in Syria. Clinton, Bush, and Obama loved using the US military abroad. As for Congress. The last wars they approved were Afghanistan and Iraq. Clinton never received permission for Kosovo; and Obama never received permission Libya, Syria, and reentering Iraq. Now, if you want to state Congress has been negligent in enforcing what control it does have in the War Powers Act- then I will agree.
Yes, Congress is culpable in wasted money on the military. That goes for both the Republicans and the Democrats. All of them are more concerned about bringing home the pork to their states than an effective military.
I try to leave Israel out of things like this. They get far more in military and other expenditures than what your article lists. It is open for debate on whether the money spent is worth it or not. Is Israel a great military deterrent; or are they a friction point between the US and rest of the Middle East, and northern Africa?
That is not taking into account the new 10 year $38 billion aid package signed by Obama.
Considering that a new aircraft carrier costs around 13 billion (with US screw ups included), I wouldn't call Israel cost efficient.
Since you resent the support the US gives Israel, can you list for me the other countries that receive aid and the percentages of that aid that is required to be spent back in the US by those countries (and in fact whether that amount IS spent back in the US to fulfill that requirement)?
You, typically of those who bash Israel, totally ignore all the benefits that the US gains from Israel that the other recipients of US aid don't provide.
For the most part it is corporate welfare that keeps Boeing and Lockheed and the MIC in good financial shape until the next global warfare event.
That it benefits an ally is a happy benefit for many, for different reasons.
It is our money they are spending on US weapons. Do you understand that? They are spending only 40% of the military money we give them on US weapons; and that is set to go away. That doesn't factor in the amount of economic and other aid that we send them.
I am not anti Israeli; but I am not blind to their transgressions using our aid and military largesse. Those wishing the Palestinian problem to go away w/o recognizing it cannot do so w/o a viable state to exist in are a very large part of the problem. No, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon are not Palestine- and never have been. Trying to force people, especially taking into account historical tribal conflicts, into those countries is not going to work.
It doesn't escape the rest of the Middle East and Northern Africa that Israel wouldn't exist w/o the US propping it up.
This is the only part of your post that I have trouble with because, it doesn't include the word "yet", I think it is only a matter of time before he does start a war somewhere, N. Korea or, Iran would be my guess.
So you refuse to address what I said, and have to deflect. I will repeat it and make it a little darker in order to be more visible so maybe this time you will give me an answer IF YOU CAN!!!
AND, the US has not given economic aid to Israel for years.
I've been living in Chongqing for almost a year and a half now. During that time I've witnessed about half a dozen sonic booms that for me feel and sound like a huge bomb falling close to me. At first I didn't know why what appears to be jets flying overhead many days each week, even at night sometimes, until I realized that there is an air base nearby and these have probably been training flights. Here is a photo I took about a year ago:
It doesn't look like a commercial passenger-carrying airliner to me.
Of COURSE there's an air base nearby, and the Americans were probably involved in its original construction. It's where the famed American Flying Tigers were based during WW2. I'm sure the Chinese must have expanded and improved it since then.
It seems to me that someone DIDN'T take Napoleon's advice: “China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.”
I think the Japanese woke China up during WWII and, she's been pissed ever since.
The Chinese people may never be happy about the Japanese, and having watched actual films taken by Japanese cameramen of the "Rape of Nanjing" I don't blame them. Your attempting to imagine the extent of the horrors they depicted can never match the actual atrocities.
Then to think that not even half of the Japanese soldiers involved never stood trial for it and, paid the price for what they did.
And yet beside that the Chinese, Japanese and South Koreans are meeting and working to enhance trade between them.
The US, IMO is in danger of being left on the doorstep and China will soon be the power in much of Asia and beyond.
China, Korea and, Japan have had their differences in the past but, they see that there is a need to stand together, economically and, militarily, the past two world wars and, the wars in Korea and, Vietnam have shown them this, so, yes, I can see them joining together in this and, leaving not just us but, everyone behind.
China is both in trade and military strength gaining and in some areas surpassing the US and in reality there isn't a hell of a lot we can do about it.
Pulling out of trade agreements (TPP) was, IMO, a huge mistake.
Agreed. We needed to stay in that partnership.
But doesn't that seem logical to you?
Yes, it does seem logical to me Buzz. They are trying to overcome some very bad feelings based on events of the past.
Moving forward so to speak.
To clarify, my comment about it seeming logical was in reference to your statement:
Although there may be those who blame this on Trump, China was advancing with speed long before Trump was in the picture.
I agree that China was moving on this long before Trump. IMO, Trump has put us in a bad spot regarding trade. Especially with pulling out of TPP along with the threat of tariffs on Chinese. This has backfired, in April the bottom dropped out of the orders for soybeans from China. They are buying mostly from Brazil. Wine was affected as were more farm products.
NO ONE wins in a trade war. Hopefully the opening round of this nonsense will be the last and both will move in another direction before major damage is done.
To late for that, we fed the beast now it's awake. Hong Kong should never have been returned to China and we should never have allowed them to become a manufacturing powerhouse. Now they're rich and powerful and we handed it to them. China does have a few major weaknesses though, they can't feed themselves without imports, they have no Oil and little natural gas, and they have a huge population that expects their lives to improve and they have no stomach for a war that would shutter factories and leave no fuel for civilian use and cause major food shortages. The fact is traditional Battle ships and aircraft carriers have been obsolete for 20 years, they're good for bullying small third world nations but they are easy targets for modern militaries. Subs are where the power rests now and in the future, they can hide and they can stop trade. What the USA needs is Submersible Aircraft Carriers.
We didn't give back Hong Kong or Macau. One was a British possession the other was Portuguese. Both reverted back to China via three separate treaties and a 99 year lease. If China wanted them back they could have taken them at any time prior to the transfer from England and Portugal. Could England, Portugal or the US done anything about it. I doubt if they could or would have.
There is something in China called the 100 year humiliation. That is when the colonial powers sacked China. The Chinese have long memories and that is a very painful time in their history for them.
China was going to become a power whether or not the US agreed/helped or not.
It interesting to note that the trade deficit with Hong Kong is in our favor since it is managed as a separate industrial zone than mainland China, as is Macau.
There is a large US ex pat community in Hong Kong around 80,000. All of this is good for the US.
In WWII the Japanese had underwater aircraft carriers.