You have to assume that China is feeling the heat when you read stuff like this:
He followed up the surprisingly strong statement with an even more shocking comment, in which Tiankai went so far as to tacitly hint that the "lessons of history" suggest that if there is no deal, what comes next could be another great depression... and conventional war.
If China is not the one hurting, why would the ambassador use language like this? Why not simply pivot to other countries and ignore the US?
Answer? Maybe because we have the only growing economy in the world? Maybe because there is nowhere else in the world that can provide the capital China has grown accustomed to?
If we do not confront China now, then when would be a good time?
Interesting chart.
What surprises me is, with more then four times the US population, that they don't already exceed us in military spending. Guess it depends on priority ... infrastructure or the biggest stick.
It doesn't seem likely that a forecast for military spending that far out will be accurate.
It also seems very unlikely that a military conflict will take place with China........or Russia for that matter.
Neither side could come out a winner.
"It also seems very unlikely that a military conflict will take place with China........or Russia for that matter."
Mike, we agree. The threat comes from a rogue terrorist group doing a 9/11 type attack.
While China's national GDP rivals ours, their per-capita GDP pales in comparison.
The one thing that stands out to me in what was said is that China is threatening war if we don't go back to allowing them to steal from us.
The US is essential to their plans of world domination. Their Plan B, according to them, is to go to war with us.
And, yet, there are those who say that the tariffs are hurting us more than them . . .