China is keeping on stirring up the situation with raising tension with Japan, then the Philippines , then Vietnam and India and so on.
One trait of these flair ups is that every time the US starts to get interested….they move to another area.
It looks like the Chinese political class is more interested in an old political strategy than real war: when there are issue at home, create an enemy to distract the masses.
This has been done over and over, the latest and biggest was the USSR strategy.
It is a smart strategy (as long as it does not create an actual war) – but it shows the amount of strain induced by the economic change from export economy to consumer driven economy there is for real in China.
A smarter strategy for China would be to be silent until the army is ready and then pounce on the neighbourhood country when ready. They know it as they have one of the smartest political class, but evidently they worry much more about the level of discontent within the Chinese people than anything else.
A word about the military situation.
The super advanced weapons that supposedly China has, in reality are 80% in development or just being tested. For example, the aircraft carrier will start to be operative in 2017/20 (first against so many of the US – and its an USSR old design – Kiev Aircraft Carrier)) and the stealth aircraft (again a first generation, while the American are studying the 4th generation unmmaned) again will be deployed in 2020.
And a naval battle requires a level of Air-Sea coordination that currently only the US, and maybe Japan and UK can achieve.
The real danger will come around 2020 when China will match is verbal aggressiveness with military power.
Why you hear about it so much is actually again a old USSR American strategy – they boast so much the enemies capability so they can get funds for new weapon systems.
Current developments (that I know of) under the “Chinese attack scenario” are hypersonic missiles and strategic bombers (hypersonic means that they practically fly in low orbit until they re enter the atmosphere – practically a 2 hours flight to go anywhere and nearly impossible to intercept), a stealth warship and , the funkiest, a sound wave pulse that disable the enemy electronics.
So practically back to the Cold War scenario as previously mentioned.
investorpolitico 