the next time someone criticizes China's defense budget...

ok, but the point is about china reaching the point where it can create havoc. it doesn't need us style spending to that.

i think you miss the point anyway. just because someone criticises chinese military spending, it doesn't follow that they support us military spending levels. do we have to write a disclaimer every time we criticise china? Something along the lines of "This criticism does not mean that I support it happening in my own country like a hypocrite. I am against X as a general proposition, not just when it happens in China". Would that be good enough for you? Or do i have to go through every country in the world where X occurs, criticising it there as well? Let me know, cos it will mean that posts on these forums from me will have to get a lot lot longer.... :wink:

but the problem is that with such an aggressive, militaristic central hegemon, it is entirely natural and legitimate for other powers to seek their own means of defense in case the us goes nuts or ah-bian decides to cross one of his self-declared no-go-zones.

It is quite possible that someone can criticise both China and the USA's spending, especially if they don't come from those two countries.

Also one problem isn't quite so much that China spends X amount of money - it's more that it refuses to disclose the real figure.

And who says what is a "no go zone" for Chen Shui-bian? The tyrants in Zhongnanhai who are afraid to give their people even the slightest freedom to speak their minds?
Really, whatever Chen Shui-bian does or says, it will never justify any military action against Taiwan, and I don't think that the world would stand by and watch that happen.

I agree with you 100%. He has already made comments that Taiwan is a country, is independent, etc.

I was referring to his "five noes" speech, where he himself laid out what he would not do.

Including a preemptive military strike on Chinese assets if the Chinese asserted signs of displeasure? That scenario was being bounced around the NSC lately... and nobody wanted to help the ROC in that case.

Yes, I'm sure he just thought up the "five noes" on his own because he thought they were a neat idea. Personally, I don't think he needed to do that, but he did, although I don't think he did it without pressure.
If politicians were to be consistent and go by their word, the Party would be royally screwed because they would have to actually grant the people all of the rights that they spewed out in the utterly useless Constitution.
Anyway, just speaking from my own experience, I don't think it is proper for China to create a military build-up targeting Taiwan. Leaving beside the fact that the countries of the world would have to retaliate in the event of an attack on Taiwan, I also think that most Chinese would not want to have anything to do with a war on Taiwan once it actually got started. Sure, there's a lot of tough talk at the moment, but I know that most people are just looking out for themselves. At the most, they could perhaps get the support of sexually-frustrated fascist-admiring web-users, but i don't think that would go too far.
Thus, I think that money spent on boosting China's military will, in the end, be a waste. Unless, of course, they decide to use it on their own people, which would not be without precedent.

Including a preemptive military strike on Chinese assets if the Chinese asserted signs of displeasure? That scenario was being bounced around the NSC lately... and nobody wanted to help the ROC in that case.

That is ridiculously unlikely, despite any comments made previously (like China nuking the West Coast). Taiwan would only attack the mainland if it was being or were about to be invaded (i.e. the invasion force was on its way). In any case, Taiwan's offensive capabilities are rather limited - China has almost 1,000 ballistic missiles, whereas Taiwan has less than 100 HF-IIE cruise missiles. Those would be reserved purely for military targets such as radar facilities, airbases and ports.

Including the Three Gorges Dam and Shanghai?

Don't be disingenuous. You Shi-kun said that if China were to attack cities in Taiwan, Taiwan could retaliate by attacking Shanghai and the Three Gorges. Certainly not a first strike policy like nutcase Chinese generals often stipulate, and I wouldn't call it irrational.

Including the Three Gorges Dam and Shanghai?

Oh, much like a Chinese general threatened to nuke the West Coast? :P

You know perfectly well what you mentioned isn't official Taiwanese policy. More importantly, Taiwanese missiles don't have the range to hit the Dam - and attacking Shanghai would be pointless as Taiwan doesn't have the numbers to make any impact.

Oh, those were retaliatory threats? Sorry, wasn't aware of that.

But returning to the original topic, it seems to me that the United States is a far worse disturber of world peace than China is. Physician, heal thyself.

Well, it helps if you read up on a subject before getting all hot-under-the-collar over it.

Sadly for you I'm not American.

here an interesting debate on the chinese military hosted by the carnegie endowment:

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/events/index.cfm?fa=eventDetail&id=943&...

what's interesting is that they both are not really interested in the numbers, but the capabilities of China.

Lets also pay attention to the fact that these extra billions that the Chinese military is spending could be better spent helping the 2/3rds of the country that is without any decent medical care, many without potable water, and many included in China's army of "migrant workers".

The USA doesn't have 2/3rds of its populace in conditions even remotely comparable conditions.

Right, but China's military spending as a proportion of its GDP is also smaller than the U.S., and just being richer than another country doesn't give you the excuse to spend nearly 5x as much as the next competitor or as much as the rest of the world combined.

I'm just saying that the primary target of criticism for excessive military spending should not be China but rather the United States...

Perhaps. But are we to just give China a free pass because the US spends too much on the military? US wrongdoing in military spending (playing devil's advocate here, I think US military spending is a little high but not too far from the right neighborhood) does not automatically mean that China's military spending is not harmful, alarming or aggresive.

Perhaps China's military spending is a bit too high. But ultimately, the U.S. spends far more on useless, extremely aggressive shit like the DDX rail-gun destroyer which can rain 5000 DPU shells (equivalent to 500 pound bombs) on any target within 300 miles with pinpoint accuracy, or the airborne anti-ballistic missile laser, or the rods from god Kinetic Spear System... Stuff like that has no use but to intimidate other countries. And ultimately, who should we really care about the Chinese military, with it's 80s era Su-27s and Sovremennys when the U.S. has demonstrated far more military aggression (Iraq) with much more military hardware (like 1500 mile long bombing sorties with B-2 spirits from a base in the middle of the Indian Ocean?).

IMHO, people in the U.S. have no right to criticize China over aggression without criticizing their own government first, because what's the chance that such criticism will change Chinese policies rather than make them more paranoid? Criticizing your own government at least has some chance of success. Let the moderate cadres in China do the same, without feeding the hardliners in the CCP more ammunition to justify a military budget...

It's still a concept, not a working vessel. Plus it's a bit ludicrous for you to complain about the US working on rail guns. Why can't it develop new technology? Because the rest of the world can't make them too? Would China avoid developing a new weapon that the world didn't have access to? Like hell it would - they'd be mass-produced and stationed with all Chinese units.

It has newer technology than that, such as Su-30s, J-10s, Type 98 tanks, new destroyers and frigates (constantly being churned out), etc.

If you haven't noticed, the people here do just that.

Who is to say "moderate" cadres are against military increases either? Maybe they quite like it. China does care about its image, and for everyone that says criticism makes it more defensive, there is another person that says it gives those that oppose so much military spending ammunition to use - i.e. that the pro-spenders are ruining China's peaceful image.

Saying nothing just gives the impression no one believes China is a threat/doing anything wrong, so it is better to criticise than "shut up".