Past couple of weeks:
China flooded Taiwanese airspace after the Trump phone call.
China's militarization of the South China sea ( drege islands with armaments)
And today this drone seizure in international water...China is on the move. The are gonna do a YUGE defense build up this decade.
The Great Asian Arms Buildup /China’s Military Expansion
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-shangrila/
- China is far ahead of us solar and wind power generation, having far more patents than any other country and being THE major source of alternative energy equipment.
- China has the fastest supercomputers in the world - 5 times as fast as the best the US has. They are using their own designs and all their own parts. Such computers are key in analyzing problems such as weather, climate, nuclear weapons, etc.
- China is investing heavily in education. They are pushing foreign university degrees as well as their own. They are offering major signing bonuses to experts in the US to come to China, trolling Silicone Valley, for example. Bonuses can top $1M.
- China's economy is healthy and growing, making US trade sanctions now essentially pointless when confronting global problems such as Iran. We, alone, could not have moved Iran on forcing inspections, for example.
When we moved from agriculture to manufacturing, corporations needed employees with more than 8th grade education. So, the US produced a public high school system and made it a requirement. Today, we're moving past manufacturing where other nations have caught up with us. Our competition with other countries will be in information, innovation, etc., and will require university education.
This thing with China isn't about the military.
It's about our ability to compete with them, when the competition is based on
educated brains and they have 4 times as much raw material as we have. It's about markets for products, where the US is 5% of the world.
They have the advantage of not having to sell their direction to an under educated populace - like we do. They can notice where the competition is, and can make the infrastructure changes to go there (by investing in education, in certain technologies, etc.), even if it isn't based on near term return to rich investors - like we do.