They are booming off the back of their own efforts. That this impacts not just the US but every other developed country is just too bad. Indeed one might say its belated justice after centuries of Western exploitation of China
So what ? It is expanding as the Chinese economy expands. This has happened with every booming economy and its still just 2% of their GDP just like it was decades ago. The world average for defence spending is 2.6% GDP BTW
It is for them. Its the US that wants to provoke a new arms race not China. Its what these US naval provocations are all about in Chinese waters
Expansion into the South China Sea by the CCP Dictators in Beijing is their Sudetenland military test.
CCP Dictators in Beijing do intend to dominate the globe by economics. However, as we see, the initial military aspects of their expansion are underway in the SCS. And in the East Sea against Japan. All focused on territorial claims over islands or islets, reefs, archipelagos, bunches of rocks; tens of thousands of square miles of water.
President Obama held off CCP in the SCS, with Scarborough Shoal off Manila being the key and final link in the CCP scheme. CCP has possessed control over Scarborough since 2012 but Pres. Obama made clear to Xi Jinping Scarborough is included in the US-Philippine mutual defense treaty so CCP have let it be, which has been the new status quo in SCS.
President Trump is going to overturn the table and throw the chairs out the window into the drink. To Trump and his tough and policy minded China-Taiwan advisers, to struggle in the SCS is insignificant when Taiwan is the huge number one with the CCP Dictators. The benefits to reversing CCP Dictators in SCS will accrue once the new sheriff and his posse has finished whipping CCP Dictators over Taiwan.
Taiwan is the big issue between CCP Dictators and the United States and the entire east Asia and western Pacific region, from India to Hawaii. Trump is going to break the CCP on Taiwan. After that, Sudetenland, er, South China Sea, Taiwan and the entire region will remain intact as countering and containing the CCP Dictators both militarily and in their grandiose design to dominate the world in economics backed up by military means.
The new sheriff in town has just put up notice the CCP Dictators in Beijing are going to have to check their guns and their wallets at the town line before they can enter. What CCP Fanboyz fail to recognize or realize is that military and economics are inextricably intertwined. SCS is the CCP's initial military adventure to gradually support its regional and global design to dominate in economics and finance, first the region then the globe.
So CCP Dictators in Beijing just got served notice that Taiwan is no longer within their grasp. Which means everything CCP has planned and designed has to go back to the drawing board. Everything.