An update to an earlier post

It is a strange world sometimes. I had written this post: "One Question and One Answer" a few days ago about China's announcement of an ICBM that could target sites in the USA. Now today, Bill Gertz comes up with this bit of forecasting:

Chinese dragon awakens
China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials.

U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will be forced to go to war with the United States, which has vowed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

China's military buildup includes an array of new high-technology weapons, such as warships, submarines, missiles and a maneuverable warhead designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses. Recent intelligence reports also show that China has stepped up military exercises involving amphibious assaults, viewed as another sign that it is preparing for an attack on Taiwan.

"There's a growing consensus that at some point in the mid-to-late '90s, there was a fundamental shift in the sophistication, breadth and re-sorting of Chinese defense planning," said Richard Lawless, a senior China-policy maker in the Pentagon. "And what we're seeing now is a manifestation of that change in the number of new systems that are being deployed, the sophistication of those systems and the interoperability of the systems."

I can certainly see why they want Taiwan -- Taiwan has the ISO 9000 factories, the quality of build. The motherboard in the computer you are using now probably came from Taiwan. I do wood and metal working -- tools from China are "lots of heavy cast iron but little 'precision'" and the tools from Taiwan are lots of precision and a well engineered quantity of cast alloy. More expensive (is it???) but much better quality. Much less time spent on maintenance. Taiwan is also a fiercely independent Democracy. It is not China and I do not think that its people will submit willingly to Communist Overlords. Bill Gertz' article has a sobering Coda:

Michael Pillsbury, a former Pentagon official and specialist on China's military, said the internal U.S. government debate on the issue and excessive Chinese secrecy about its military buildup "has cost us 10 years to figure out what to do"

"Everybody is starting to acknowledge the hard facts," Mr. Pillsbury said. "The China military buildup has been accelerating since 1999. As the buildup has gotten worse, China is trying hard to mask it."

Richard Fisher, vice president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said that in 10 years, the Chinese army has shifted from a defensive force to an advanced military soon capable of operations ranging from space warfare to global non-nuclear cruise-missile strikes.

"Let's all wake up. The post-Cold War peace is over," Mr. Fisher said. "We are now in an arms race with a new superpower whose goal is to contain and overtake the United States."

Been wondering about the cost of steel these days? Look to China because they have started buying a lot more than they used to. Cost of Gas? Same. The Gasoline issue is interesting as it seems that they are building up a large reserve as they are buying more than they expend for industrial and transportation uses. They are building a surplus to last them for several years...