March 11,2008:
Three decades of rapid economic growth have enabled China to go from
low-cost champion, to high-tech competitor. While a lot of the tech is stolen,
the expertise of Chinese engineers and technicians was earned the hard way, by
gaining experience at home or overseas. China can build an increasing number of
complex military technologies. No surprise here, because China builds the most
modern consumer technologies. For example, a new factory for large, flat screen
televisions, uses technology and techniques stolen from South Korea (and being
pursued by South Korean lawsuits). Russia is threatening non-legal retribution
because of rampant Chinese copying of Russian military technology. Whatever
works.
China's
military buildup is not meant to equip the all their troops with the latest
technology, but to develop the ability to build such stuff, and then train
troops who can use it effectively. Except for ICBMs (to keep the United States under
control), everything else is build in small quantities, for testing and, if
need be, an attack on the much smaller Taiwanese armed forces. To this end,
lots of ballistic missiles have been built, and over a thousand of them aimed
at Taiwan. Sort of a non-nuclear version of the ICBMs that will soon be
threatening the U.S. But two or three decades from now, China expects to have
land, air and naval forces that can match the U.S. in quality, and exceed it in
quantity.
March 5,
2008: The government announced a new
round of reforms, aimed at eliminating corruption, inefficiency and unfairness.
This sort of thing comes along every 5-10 years, and fails. But not completely.
Some good things survive, and the government hopes it gets things cleaned up
before the increasingly affluent Chinese tire of being ruled by a communist dictatorship.
March 1,
2008: China's birth rate has fallen (to 1.8 births per woman) beneath the
replacement rate (2.1). As a result, the population will begin to decline
(slowly) in the next decade or two. But the biggest problem is the growth of retirees,
and the shrinking number of workers to support them. Proposals to allow more
births run into arguments about limited resources. Moreover, as women become
more affluent, they are less inclined to have lots of kids. Japan is way ahead
in this population curve, and China does not want to join them. But no one has
yet come up with an acceptable alternative. The impact of fewer births in urban
areas over two decades ago, is showing up in growing shortages of skilled
labor. The costs of manufacturing high tech gear is growing, forcing Chinese
manufacturers to move more factories to nations with cheaper labor. The
military is giving the troops a raise, especially the technicians. Otherwise,
it can't recruit them, or keep them.
February
22, 2008: A Communications Ministry
official was arrested and charged with spying for Taiwan. Such arrests happen
with regularity in China and Taiwan, indicating the continuing espionage
efforts by both countries. Much of this is about stealing business secrets, which
China tends to consider as valuable as strictly military information. While human spies are still used a lot, most
of the best stuff is coming from Internet based snooping. The United States Department
of Defense recently admitted that it had lost a substantial amount of military data
last year, to hackers apparently operating out of China.