I'm saying that China was extremely prosperous and growing from 1980 to the present day, without increasing the size of its army 10x-20x-or-however-much-they're

I'm saying that China was extremely prosperous and growing from 1980 to the present day, without increasing the size of its army 10x-20x-or-however-much-they're-increasing-it right now. They don't have a real need for a bigger army, they could for sure defend themselves against any neighbor, even India and Russia, with "just" the military from 20 years ago.