China’s Port Power
Over the past several years, U.S. national security officials have been intensely focused on China’s growing military power. Having not faced such a powerful challenger since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington now describes Beijing, as the U.S. Annual Threat Assessment put it in February, as a “near-peer competitor”. For the U.S. military, China has also become the “pacing challenge”, the benchmark for just how fast and how far it must adjust to provide effective defense in a more competitive international system.
Yet U.S. defense strategy appears poorly calibrated to the central challenges that China poses. The breakneck modernization of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), showcased in its impressive blue-water navy and increasingly lethal rocket forces, obscures another, equally important foundation of China’s global power projection: its economic position.… Seguir leyendo »