China Flexes...with Russia

Update:
Ex Pat, you're right. I don't currently have hard data in hand (to clear clutter I threw away Robert D. Kaplan's fine piece on ascendant China in The Atlantic Monthly 2-3 months ago) to justify my suspicion of China. Maybe their ascendance is good for all and I hope so, but vague memories of Kaplan's piece have me thinking that they are or might be a threat. Perhaps more of a threat economically in light of our manufacturing base having been largely outsourced and now our vaunted tech edge evaporating by dint of insufficient numbers of engineers and inadequate science education. At bottom I have a nagging feeling that China is a threat but it's just a nagging feeling and thus I hope your depiction is more accurate than gut.

Back to worrisome factors on the radar screen. This from Buckley last week on the potential domino effect of higher and higher oil prices.
Update over.



More worrisome news from ascendant China. (AP report)

Excerpt:
The U.S. Defense Department said in a report last month that China's military was increasingly seeking to modernize and could become a threat to American and other forces in the Asia-Pacific region as it looked to spread its influence.

The Russian military is also eager to show it can still flex its muscles despite much-publicized woes.

The so-called 'American Century' began in 1945. The idea of the US as the world's hyper-power following the collapse of the USSR (and thus the end of the two-superpower paradigm) lasted maybe fifteen years. The alignments of regional powers arrayed against the USproceeds. I'd be grateful for readers who actually know inside scoop to articulate relevant factors about the US economy vis a vis China and India, long term energry plans, and related geopolitical/military matters. (Tall order, huh?)

It's perhaps inevitable that US power would decline vis a vis large developing nations that actually develop, and that in itself is not really a concern to me. What is a concern is a totalitarian state like China with a billion plus people gaining economic power that allows for military power. Supposedly their engineering schools are vastly out producing ours now, which suggests a soon coming tech disadvantage for the US. Lots of worrisome factors on the radar screen and I've not a clue about what the US should do about them.