@Falen – One of the problems that China has is that for it to be absolutely sure of security, it needs to have an army, navy and airforce strong enough to beat all of its neighbours – however any army strong enough to defend a country against all of a country’s neighbours will also be strong enough to threaten them. These countries will then form alliances in an effort to counter the perceived threat and you then end up with an arms race. This is the dilema which countries like Germany have faced throughout their history. The only real solution is collective security organisations like the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation and NATO – but these blocks are also likely to conflict with each other.

Don’t forget the lesson Vietnam learned from Chin in the 1980’s.

Hainan, being the southern most Chinese territory, at least for now, is also prime location for the Chinese space program. Space ships get bonus speed due to the closeness to the equator. This bonus is also great for other kinds of rockets too. And therefore a great place for space port and other rocket related installations.

And the whole “money could be spent on the poor” argument fail to take into account that investing in military provides peace and stability. Peace and stability is in fact not “free” and it is naive to strip yourself naked and expect the “international system” or United States to safeguard China’s interest. Certainly nobody was looking out for China’s interest when Japanes invaded, why should China trust the system now?

What’s wrong with having secret bases? The fundamental nature of military affair is deception. I don’t see any problem with military keeping secrets to themselves.

Considering the land mass of China and the long coast line, the level of spending currently is in fact not enough to safeguard the security of the nation. Considering the population too, I quite frankly see nothing wrong with China spending 5 times the amount of budget as United States, today that budget is less than 1/5.