China's Muscle: Birth Of A Superpower

China wants to be a world power on a par with the U.S., but it has a lot of catching up to do

If you're looking to understand better why Chinese spies have been so eagerly vacuuming the U.S. for military secrets during the past three decades, you could do worse than start in China with the People's Liberation Army. China's military today is so outdated that much of its equipment might well have seen action in the Korean War, and many of its troops are semiliterate. The country's strategic nuclear arsenal is 300 times as small as that of the U.S. The entire arsenal packs about as much explosive power as what the U.S. stuffs into one Trident submarine. China's ballistic-missile sub (singular,...

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