The latter may well result in significant reduction in American capabilities to fight nation state conflicts, which in turn would see American deterrent capabilities in this region collapse in coming years. This has major strategic implications for Australia and has the potential to leave Australia more strategically exposed than at any time since the 1930s.
In March, the US DoD released its annual report to Congress on China's military power. This report was a strong departure from the Bush-era reports, which during the Rumsfeld period were heavily censored to remove any content that might distract Congress or the US mass media from the Bush Administration's focus on fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the Islamic world.
The unprecedented China report elicited a barrage of public complaints from Beijing, with state sponsored media and government agencies producing editorials and critical statements. For all intents and purposes the reaction from Beijing validated the quality of the 2009 report.
The summary section describing China's evolving military capabilities is one of the best summaries produced to date in any public analysis of China's growth, and worth analysing in some detail.
"The Department's understanding of China's military power has improved over the reporting period [since 2000] but much remains to be learned about China's national and military strategies, progress and trends in its military modernization, and the related implications for regional security and stability. China has improved modestly the transparency of its military and security affairs, but until it begins to view transparency less as a transaction to be negotiated and more as a responsibility that accompanies the accumulation of national power, the insights reflected in this report will remain incomplete, bridged only by assessment and informed judgment."
The reality is that China has been playing a guessing game with its neighbours and the US for some time, concealing its strategic agendas - leaving analysts to infer its strategic intent by analysing what kind of capabilities it is developing, its military equipment and systems procurements, and its deployments. Most official output from Beijing, including White Papers, are mostly public relations, and often well crafted and thought out public relations.