China: January 11, 2005

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The government announced that it will increase money spent on modernizing the navy, air force and missile forces. Chinese efforts to develop their own advanced military technology, and build Chinese designed weapons, is showing results. New ship and submarine designs are entering service. New warplane designs, after many years of trial and error, are also ready for mass production. China appears to be considering shifting money from producing Russian Su-27s under license, to producing Chinese designs. Chinese ballistic missiles, most of them with a range under 1,000 kilometers (just enough to pound Taiwanese targets) are taking advantage of the growing Chinese electronics industry to produce more reliable, accurate and inexpensive guidance systems.