Her unveiling of the advanced Jian-10 fighter bomber jet reportedly surprised many Western analysts.  China's interest in building aircraft carriers implies a desire for even greater might in the arena of power projection over vast distances.

In the common of cyberspace, the Chinese government last autumn conducted a highly disruptive hacker attack, called Tiger Rain, into the Naval War College's computer systems.  When I attended a two-day seminar at the College's campus in early December -- interestingly enough, on the subject of China's energy needs and implications for American maritime strategy -- the systems were still shut down for a careful forensic analysis of the methods of forced entry, and for a thorough damage assessment concerning the scope of the intrusion.  This premeditated cyber offensive -- which at a minimum created considerable expense and major inconvenience -- doesn't come close to being an act of war under prevailing international law.  But the unbridled expansion and increasing complexity of the cyberspace common might eventually force the equivalent of Geneva Conventions on when such an electronic intrusion amounts to an actual casus belli invasion.

In the oceanic sphere -- the oldest of the global commons -- China continues to increase her sea power reach and potency, toward anticipated levels well beyond what could possibly be justified solely for national defense.  This holds even if we generously include in "defense" the dissuasion of any move by Taiwan toward independence with support from America.  China's burgeoning New Fleet, with modern diesel and nuclear-powered submarines, is being constructed (or purchased from Russia) at a pace that overwhelms our current one-per-year Virginia-class SSN build rate.  Right now the People's Liberation Army Navy is in about the same position relative to us as the Kremlin's navy was soon after Sputnik I was launched.  But the Cold War went on for another thirty grim years after Sputnik, during which submarines and spy satellites proved essential for eventually bringing down the USSR.  The same thing could happen again over the next three decades, except with America ending up the underdog, diminished by the PRC's "comprehensive hard and soft national power."

China doesn't have to be perfect to gradually contain us and then wear us down while we're distracted and drained by the War on Terror (including the controversial, divisive fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan).  China just needs to be more farsighted, more ambitious for global hegemony, and less casualty-averse than America -- while harnessing her steady economic growth and gigantic trade surplus to fund constantly improving and ever more numerous weapons systems, simultaneously training and indoctrinating the skilled, motivated personnel required to field them successfully in battle.  The cumulative effect over time could well be that the most technologically sophisticated armed forces in the world (ours) eventually do get eclipsed.

Some have defined the ASAT test as a shot across our bow.  I prefer to position it more positively and actionably as a wake-up call.  One crucial indicator of whether the U.S. does wake up will be the timing of an increase in the Virginia-class submarine build rate.  I say this because there's really just one big world commmon nowadays, inseparably and interdependently multidimensional.  An occurrence in space must not be allowed to become a PRC sleight of hand that prevents us from looking hard in the opposite direction, underwater.  Properly enforced federal oil royalties, agribusiness subsidies rationalized as appropriate to the 21st century, and suitably rigorous tax audits of major corporations ought to provide more than adequate funding to construct two Virginias a year without compromising vital domestic social programs.  The overweening rule of engagement for dealing effectively with Beijing on every plane should be idealism, not ideology, tempered by a healthy dose of pragmatic defense preparedness, not fiscally dysfunctional partisanship.