AsiaInt Political and Strategic Review, April 2005

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http://www.asiaint.com/arl/arl5849.asp - 1,114 words

One of China's key strategic priorities over the last 15 years, since the US demonstrated the breadth of its military capabilities on the battlefields of Iraq for the first time, has been to modernise its armed forces to close the gap with the world's most advanced military. Its ability to do so has been constrained by several factors, not least ongoing reforms which have prioritized market-driven, consumer-led economic growth and tighter constraints on public spending. But the most obvious constraint has been a lack of access to advanced military technology_