It’s all there for show…

Any conflict between America and China would of course be over Taiwan, but how realistic is such a confrontation.

If the Economist is to be believed America’s actions by moving troops into Australia, is an admission that Washington had been distracted by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to such an extent that it had forgotten the rise of China.

If that is indeed the case, what hostile actions has China taken to alarm the world’s last superpower?

China is the second biggest military spender in the world today, which currently stands at 89.8 billion dollars, a fraction of what America spends – 739.3bn dollars.

Further, the combined budgets of Britain, France and Germany, who are all contributors to Nato, almost double China’s.

In addition to all this, the US and Nato have at least a decade of combat experience through wars in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and of course Libya.

The People’s Liberation army of China is indeed the largest army in the world, however, the last time it was involved in a theatre of war was in 1979 against Vietnam, where it was crushed.

And the Korean War was a complete disaster.

So, if anyone is going to be provoking a war, it certainly won’t be China.