Big on spit and polish and parades but short on experience, new technology and force coordination, China’s military has far to go before its bite begins to approach its increasingly loud, and for some fearsome, bark.

China’s military bluster camouflages toothless bite | Reuters

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) remains in session. As usual, the meeting has provided Beijing an opportunity to highlight the past year’s successes and lay out the problems that lie ahead. On the surface at least, China has shown remarkable resilience in the face of global economic crisis. It has posted enviable gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates while keeping factories running (if at a loss) and workers employed. But the economic crisis has exposed the inefficiencies of China’s export-dependent economic model, and the government has had to pump money into a major investment stimulus package to make up for the net drain the export sector currently is exacting on the economy.

For years, China’s leaders have recognized the risks of the current economic model. They have debated policy ideas to shift from the current model to one that is more sustainable in the long run and incorporates a more geographically equitable growth and a hefty rise in domestic consumption.

RealClearWorld – China’s Leadership in Crisis Mode

China now has better fighter jets than Taiwan, according to a military report by the island’s defence ministry as the air force Monday renewed its bid to obtain new F-16s from the United States.

Of the three types of fighter jets in Taiwan’s air force, only the F-16A/Bs have a slight edge over the Chinese aircraft, the report by the defence ministry found, the Liberty Times newspaper said Monday.

AFP: Taiwan says China now has edge in air power

More importantly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is gunning for a paradigm shift in geopolitics, namely, new rules of the game whereby the fast-rising quasi-superpower will be playing a more forceful role. In particular, Beijing has served notice that it won’t be shy about playing hardball to safeguard what it claims to be “core national interests.”

Beijing Seeks Paradigm Shift in Geopolitics – The Jamestown Foundation

Recent statements by Chinese military officials are raising concerns among U.S. analysts that the communist government in Beijing is shifting its oft-stated “peaceful rise” policy toward an aggressive, anti-U.S. posture.

The most recent sign appeared with the publication of a government-approved book by Senior Col. Liu Mingfu that urges China to “sprint” toward becoming the world’s most powerful state.

Washington Times – China rhetoric raises threat concerns

Editor’s note: China’s Bubble is a four-part multimedia series on an emerging threat to China’s booming economy — a residential real estate bubble, particularly in the business and finance hub of Shanghai. The series also looks at the underlying causes of the bubble, and examines how one unique social custom is driving prices even higher.

In a former Naval airfield reincarnated as one of the city’s hottest new residential zones, one set of high-rises is aptly named “Shanghai Dream.”

Lodged in a once-forgotten corner of Shanghai’s downtown the area of Xin Jiangwan Cheng, or New River Bay Town, is only half-built. But the development is already home to some of the fastest-rising property prices in the city.

China Economy | Shanghai Real Estate

Among other things, China refuses to grant it island status, and refers to it instead as an atoll, reef or simply a rock. By doing so, China hopes to throttle back Japan’s plan to create an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) there. The dispute over Okinotori, which Japan calls Okinotorishima, persists because it involves strategic concerns and rights to undersea resources over an area that is roughly equivalent to the entire land mass of the four main Japanese islands.

Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.

China’s hidden borrowing may push government debt to 96 percent of gross domestic product next year, increasing the risk of a financial crisis in the world’s third-biggest economy, Professor Victor Shih said.

“The worst case is a pretty large-scale financial crisis around 2012,” said Shih, a political economist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who spent months researching borrowing transactions by about 8,000 local-government entities. “The slowdown would last at least two years and maybe longer,” the author of the book “Factions and Finance in China” said in a phone interview March 1.

China’s Hidden Debt Risks 2012 Crisis, Northwestern’s Shih Says – BusinessWeek