For all the euphorically minded folks whom think free trade is the essential ingredient to global peace, I need to remind you the world is just not a Fair Playing field.
China is using the windfall economic gains to increase the size and sophistication of it’s military. To fund the military of emerging 3rd world countries. And to expand their policies through out the Asian theater.
Of course these policies
DO NOT INCLUDE Free Speech, Habeas Corpus, or even the right to Bear Children, (1 is the limit in China)
China's defense budget continued to grow in 2004. Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing proposed an increase of 11.6 percent <$2.6 billion> in military expenditures. The government forecast total revenue for the central budget at $157 billion, up 7 percent <$10.9 billion> from 2003, with a 7 percent boost in overall spending from 2003. The country's $38.7 billion deficit was the same as 2003. Adding off-budget funding for foreign weapons system imports, total defense-related expenditures for 2004 were estimated at between $50 and $70 billion dollars by Richard Lawless, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense.
In 2005, it was announced that China's military budget will rise 12.6 percent, to 247.7 billion yuan ($29.9 billion). China has announced double-digit increases in military spending nearly every year for more than a decade.
Most analysts estimate China's real spending on defense is at least three times as great as the publicly disclosed figure.
The growing Chinese defense budget has raised concerns regarding US-Chinese military balance in Asia. China's growing economy has empowered the government to better pursue the modernization of its military. According to a 2005 RAND corporation analysis entitled Modernizing China's Military,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/budget.htm
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