Defense News carries an interesting piece today on the rise of China and its implications for American allies in the Pacific. Reporting from Taipei, Wendell Minnick spoke with two friends of THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD to better understand the impact of China’s swelling defense budget. Reuben Johnson, THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s aviation and defense correspondent, had this to say:
And speaking to the “real fears in the region that China might procure the Tu-22 Backfire bomber and the thrust-vectoring Su-35 fighter,” John Tkacik said that,
I spoke with the Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson a couple of weeks ago about the prospects for a sale of F-22s to Japan. He said that it would cost the Chinese approximately $300 billion to build an air defense network capable of thwarting the stealthy, supersonic fighter, though talk of any sale remained “pure speculation.” But the Pentagon’s dithering on the matter perfectly illustrates Johnson’s point–the United States has no coherent policy for balancing against China’s rise.
