Over at StrategyPage, there's a short column regarding what the Chinese leadership really thinks. Now, I'm no mind-reader, so I don't claim any special insight into whether the Chinese communists view India as a future threat or not. There's probably many schools of thought in Beijing. But this line struck me as being authentic:
...they don't seem to think we're “bogged down” in Iraq so much as that we're gaining valuable combat experience (maybe a million “seasoned” troops by the time it’s over) as well as learning all sorts of new tricks in how to fight insurgencies, and how to use new military technologies*.
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* I was talking to a Taiwanese aquaintance way back when, and he casually stated his belief that the real reason that America attacked Afghanistan was to test out its new weapons systems. 9-11? That was merely the excuse!
Now, normally I would dismiss this as the conjecturing of some kind of moonbat. Except that the individual in question was an otherwise bright young man who was in fact an ROC officer (or officer-in-training). So it doesn't surprise me to hear that similar opinions hold sway among the political class on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
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