China has been pushing India’s border and may be behind the Muslim attacks in India. China is the US major competitor, not Russian and not the annoying Taliban and AQ. There really are small fry compared to China’s possible aggression. But China is right now going for the long view that we will weaken ourselves and they can gain control of the Pacific without going to war.

China is very rational and pragmatic. They test all new administrations. They snatched an EP3 intelligence asset during early GW term and we had to grovel to get it back. . China recently tried the same by shadowing an unarmed sonar towing array intelligence ship on the East China Sea. Very similar when they had their F 8 shadow too close and crashed with our EP3 that had to land in China on April 2001.

China was quiet and supportive after 9-11 after it saw the massive anger and the 3-week campaign to get to Baghdad gave them pause. They have been learning that they do not want to compete against our tech savvy military

It is easier to let us weaken ourselves and Obama is validation of that idea. The ironic issue is that our dollar by inflation or devaluation from the massive economic spending of Obama will really hurt the Chinese.

The one thing the Chinese counted on was the US staying a capitalistic bulwark and economic powerhouse.