A Chinese Reminder

China's hypersensitive overreaction to a published Pentagon report assessing Chinese military capabilities should remind everyone of the type of regime that still rules the country. China even made the ridiculous claim that the mere publication of such a report constituted interference in their internal affairs. This is same language they employ with regard to Taiwan, Tibet, human rights criticism, and pretty much anything else they object to.

'The report issued by the United States continues to play out the theory of China's military threat, severely distorts facts and interferes with China's internal affairs,' Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said of the document

It has gone so far as to file a formal protest, all over a standard Pentagon assessment.

Reporting on China often focuses on its rapidly expanding economy, and its close financial ties with the U.S., particularly as China buys up more of the debt that allows us to keep spending wildly. The Chinese reaction to this report is a useful reminder that the country is still controlled by paranoid communist oligarchs who cannot abide the slightest criticism, even from outside sources. It's something to keep in mind the next time someone suggests that we should cancel a major weapon system because it doesn't fit in with the types of wars we are now fighting.