[Imp]

Some food for thought
China is I believe the richest nation in the world & since taking back Hong Kong has made major moves to improve trade & become a major player in the world.
It wants a voice thats listened to & yes may well be aiming to usurp the USA as the major power, do they have a plan for this?
Military spending means people take them seriosly.
Heavy spending of recent on tech esp stuff that addresses resources are running dry means they want to be at the forefront of replacement techs, plus the voice might mean they get a share of whats left.
On the political front I believe a huge chunk of USAs national debt is owed to guess who, not talking billions here keep going. This could be used as leverage or suppose they say give it back you have 10 years to repay.
Response we can't do it fine we now own a good part of the USA & can really get on with trading with the world.
Don't see how anyone can take Americas side they owe the money so if China says we will have the West coast at current land prices what happens exactly.
Why bother with Taiwan they need the space
Last time I looked USA was 1st China 2nd when it comes to GDP the diffrence is China has a huge profit while USA owes over 10 trillion or most of its GDP.
As a foot note I lived in Hong Kong when British ruled it & if China copies its economic model they are on a winner.
I could never figure out where all the money came from.
Tax free port for trade
Very good pay
Very low taxes you had to be a millionare to pay British basic tax rate perhaps because of this there are lots of them.
Still managed to pay millions to Britain.
Quality of life streets ahead of the UK.
Some people will say what about the poverty, not nearly as bad as you think & sorry if offend anyone but Chinese prefer to live in what we would call cramped conditions.
Whole families multi generation under one roof & they saved the pennies.
The modern Chinese has adopted Western trends more space & spends so Hong Kong has the highest percentage of luxury stuff like Rolls Royce in the world & your average Joe drives a Merc because they prefer them to BMWs.
To give you an idea project I was on had to relocate a poor village goverment gave each family a shop & each male got a BIG flat, all females got 1/2 a flat. They promptly sold them all exept the one the family moved into.
I was in goverment flats as working for my master bedroom was well over 16' square with 2 verandas & I used to start most days by swimming in the pool that serviced 16 flats.

I just state these as examples because if Chinas economic model is based on Hong Kong the world had better start paying attention & maybe the military spending is there to make sure it does

Edit just realised what forum this is in