The People's Republic of China has not yet reached the military might of the Soviet Empire. It requires a little more time and a little more infusion of Western aid, loans, technology and the hard currency of our tourists.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I visited the Chinese side last year. The Chinese are in a constant state of military readiness. They have all their nuclear weapons in the area, presumably trained on targets across the border.
And look at the mess that Russia is; most Chinese don't want to follow that.
So if you look back over the long history of China, they've never tried to take over the world, but they've been quite aggressive in their own neighborhood... in carrying out their own purposes and interests in their sphere of the world.
Assuming China does not become destabilized and continues to grow, it will no doubt develop a military program in proportion to its resources.
U.S. officials and outside experts agree that China is undertaking a comprehensive modernization of its military. The Chinese military has gotten smaller but smarter.
People are not trying to get into China, they're trying to get out of China. The United States is the only great country where people are trying to get into to this country for obvious reasons.
It was one thing to contain the Soviet Union in Europe because Britain, France, and Germany were all willing to join in. But will Japan and other Asian countries be willing to join in the containment of China?
China is not only formidable, it is also aggressively building its own economic infrastructure. Just a few years from now, China will rival the U.S. and the European Union in global market power. It already has surpassed us in population.
The Chinese were good to us. The war years for us Russians in China were very good years.
The United States is afraid of China; it is not a military threat to anyone and is the least aggressive of all the major military powers.