On Sat, 09 Aug 2003 15:39:23 GMT, "tim gueguen"
wrote:


"T3" wrote in message
. com...

"john_au" wrote in message
om...
"Dave Kearton" wrote in message
...
"Peter Kemp" wrote in message
news | On Fri, 08 Aug 2003 02:44:22 GMT, "T3" wrote:
|
|
||
| Do they have a plan? Almost certainly. Do we need to panic now?
| absolutely not. Currently they can't seriously challenge the USN -
| hell the RN could take on the PLAN on and have a good chance of a
win
| if it was more than 200nm from land to eliminate a few thousand of
| their short range fighters.
|

snipped and apoligies



I'm sorry, but I beg to disagree, from the brief look at
http://www.sinodefence.com/default.asp it appears that the Chinese are
using their new found capitalistic ways to finance a major modernization
of
their military from top to bottom. Clearly they are in the midst of a
upgrade/modernization not seen before, thanks to Israel and Russia(Clinton
too) it looks like they will be able to skip a generation in the level of
sophistication.

Which should only put them 2 generations back in certain areas instead of
four.

Taiwan should take notice as well as Japan, Australia, India
and the USA. It would appear they want to be a force to be "dealt" with,
not
only in SE Asia either. Taiwan has not responded on the offered Kidd class
ships(I think) nor the submarines that were approved by the USA sometime
ago, one must wonder why...Is there more here than "meets the eye" or
what?
I don't know for sure but from what I've read it sure looks like the
Chicoms
are arming themselves with extremely sophisticated and coordinated weapons
for some reason,

Yes, so they'll actually have some vague claim to having anywhere near a
modern navy.

Meanwhile the development effort will draw the essential
investment capital from their economy, wrecking them as
thoroughly as Japan was wrecked in the twenties and thirties. I
wonder whether they'll collapse like the Soviets or have to be
dragged down like the Japanese? It is something to worry about.
____

Peter Skelton