If I were in charge ...

[Krsqk]

quote:

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originally posted by Cyrien:
Well the Chinese still have WAY less nukes than either of these nations. About as many as an SDI defense system could stop. Which if implemented has brought a promise from the Chinese to increase their own nuclear arsenal to a point where our SDI system couldn't stop it.

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That's about the only promise I'd trust them to keep. They'll also increase their nuclear arsenal if we keep ours the same, or if we cut it back, or if we dance in circles on a pile of banana peels. (I seem to remember that their nukes weren't able to reach the U.S. until sometime during the Last administration. Hmmm...) I trust the Chinese government exactly as much as "I-speak-peace-in-English-but-I-say-kill-the-Jews-in-Arabic" Arafat. Both say whatever they need to in order to get the proper response from the mass media in this country, while going right ahead with their own plans.

[Askan Nightbringer]

quote:

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Originally posted by dmm:

Can those asking us to lay off China, please explain why China has a standing army of 300 million?

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Now I'm going to be quite frank on this statement.
Where the hell did you hear that toss?
Is that what George W is spouting to justify US military expenditure to about a gizzillion times the rest of the world?

Doing some hasty research on the internet (always a reliable source of information *cough*) I see the size of their army is more like 3 million, but may have been reduced to 2.5 million in 2000. (And even then that number comes from biased western web sites trying to make a point about the threat China poses) Although this seems like a mind boggling large number (coming from someone in a country less that 20 mil) to do a truthful analysis of the threat I would need to know
1) The standing armies from US, Indonesia and any other countries with lots of troops.
2) Are the police services considered part of the Chinese military? The CIA website seems to think they are.
3) What's military expediture? % of GDP? We all know who "wins" that one.
4) What are Chinese goals? They don't seem to be particularly aggresive in foreign policy (expect Taiwan...which they don't really consider foreign). Imagine what would have happened if a Chinese spy plane was caught moving along the Atlantic coast.
5) Will China really go head to head against USA? Russia never did...the cold war always seemed to have had "agreed" theatres of war. Did russian troops ever really fight american ones?

The chinese are fine, they just want what most people want and thats to live in peace.


Askan

PS. tigga, I think your perception of australian girls has more to do with jealousy or maybe they all just refused your advances. or maybe its that whinging pom syndrome

[Cyrien]

Ahh yes. Thanks for correcting me. The site I got it from most obviously had a couple of misplaced zeros.

As for Russian and American troops facing each other. Yes they did. In Korea... in the air. American Jet Fighters and Soviet jet fighters sent to help train the Chinese in the new migs they had just recieved.

As for the comparing USSR with China... well the two systems they run under are actually quite different. As to whether a cold war would work on China. Possibly. Possibly not. Hard to tell without trying. Shall we go for another 50 years and find out?

I think this has more accurate information on Chinese military size. http://www.chinatoday.com/arm/

And this has some data on US military.
http://www.observer.co.uk/internatio...665049,00.html
[ 11 April 2002: Message edited by: Cyrien ]

[ 11 April 2002: Message edited by: Cyrien ]

[Askan Nightbringer]

So is China still a threat then?

And if so why?

Askan