How We Match Up

摘要

On paper, China's armed forces look frighteningly formidable. The People's Liberation Army, which includes all branches of the military, is the largest standing force in the world: nearly 3 million soldiers, sailors and airmen on active duty. The PLA's budget keeps growing as it modernizes itself, replac-ing a human-wave peasant army with a higher-tech force increas-ingly capable of combined opera-tions on land, sea and air. Led by hard-line old generals and courted by civilian politicians eager for its support, the PLA is on its way to becoming—in fact, may have already become—the strongest local military force in Asia. And as the latest threat to Taiwan has demonstrated, the United States now is locked in, more than ever, to the role of regional policeman: the only power strong enough to guarantee the security of China's anxious neighbors.