Halloran vs. Tkacik on China Threat

The Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Affairs wing of US establishment elites, offers this debate on the China Threat between Richard Halloran and John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation:

In early March, China announced it will increase military spending by nearly 18 percent in 2007, to more than $45 billion. Experts say Beijing understates its defense budget by more than half but the proposed 2008 U.S. military budget of $481 billion still dwarfs China's. Yet the spending increase, which comes less than two months after Beijing conducted an anti-satellite test, raises concern about China's growing military might and the associated challenge posed to the United States.

Richard Halloran, a Honolulu-based freelance writer who specializes in Asian security issues and was formerly with the New York Times as a correspondent in Asia and military correspondent in Washington, debates John J. Tkacik, Jr., a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, about whether China poses a military threat to the United States.

The debate is posted online as a series of essays. Happy reading!

[Taiwan] [US] [China]