No need to argue pointlessly on such topic. Like I have mentioned in other posts, USA has fundamentally the best constitution for human rights in this world. It values protection of personal properties and the rights of religious practices. The internationally renowned, and controversial, second amendment suggests that every man and women has the rights to pickup arms whenever he/she feel their rights been threatened. Not even that, just the idea of prevention of someone else violating their rights is enough to give rights to bear arms.
How is this different for countries at the international level? If Japan had attacked you TWICE as recent as the last century, then why should you not feel threatened. Japan had been more and more hawkish in the last decade and this transformation is accelerating. They have been trying to change their constitution so they can send military abroad, and anyone who is not childish enough knows that the convenience for US troops in the areas logistics supply and support is just an excuse. It is obvious their long term goal is to project forces abroad.
If even normal citizen could bear arms for self protection, then why could not a sovereign nation spend money on self protection?
Of course South Korea won't attack China, neither does it have the gut to. But don't forget North Korea. As much as China doesn't like North Korea (surprising for most, but this does exist, which I will talk about in another topic), due to the nature of their geographical location and strategical importance, China has no choice but to backup North Korea for their own interests. This is a problem, since North Korea is internally unstable and any turbulence could draw the attention of the Seventh Fleet, potentially even lead to US full scale intervention. If this happens, like it did happen before, should China setback and allow the US army setup check points at the Yalu River, or should they at least try to maintain status-quot?
As big as China's military sounds, it is very spread out. Like mentioned before, the Northeast region is a very unstable hot-spot, the situations may be as mild as a large scale refugee influx or might be as severe as the full scale US intervention. Do you guys really think 200-300 their generation jets are enough to handle something of this scale?
Another potential opponent/competitor is the polar bear to the north. Its relationship had been very rough with China for the past 300-400 years. The only warm periods are the Stalin era and the recent alliance to counter US influence. But like it had happened so many times before, such as the Sino-soviet split in 1960, things could change overnight, you never know when the polar bear could take a bite out of you unexpectedly. As weak as Russia looks today, it still has a very big and solid military industry. It might take them sometime to recover, like the old saying in Chinese culture, a camel starved to death is still bigger than a horse. If Putin gets re-elected and his later successor do their job well, Russia could easily rise to be a formidable force again.
Tibet is another topic that we cannot leave out. It is and will be unstable for a long period of time. Ethnic Han makeup for less than 5% of the total population. On top of that, it borders India, which it disputes over territorial claims. The famous Southern Tiber or Aranalchal pradesh region, is as big as 3/4 of Bangladesh. India currently has at least 200 thousand troops in the region. They are building up roads for military purposes and steadily transferring their fighter jets to here. In fact whenever India does something, especially in terms of military build-ups, they compare themselves to China. They have China as their biggest potential aggressor. Should this not worry China?
The same applies to Xinjiang, which is even bigger and harder to handle. The ethnic Han Chinese in that region only makes up 40% of the population, there are another 10-15 million Muslims that may or may not want to seek independence. This population is enough to be a big country in Western Europe. In fact a lot of the activists/terrorists actually get trained in Bin Laden's camps. Don't you guys think China also needs to station at least few hundred thousand troops in this region? Not mentioning this region also border Pakistan and Afghanistan, two of the most unstable region in the world. Even more, its has the presence of US troops.
Then the list goes on. The disputes in the South China sea, the land dispute with Vietnam, the unification of Taiwan, and on and on....
Is this not enough?
To simply put it, if you live in the Ghetto, you're the only white guy. Your neighbors all walk around with guns and knives. What would you do? Go to the gun store? Would you not lock your door when you leave?
