They are already in the PAK-FA project so there isn't much of a big deal in this. My guess is they cannot way for that project to be finished, so they are buying these fighters as an interim solution. The Chinese have increased their air force just way too much recently...
The Japanese economy hit a limit. But it has regained growth if you ignore the earthquakes which happened in Japan causing the Asian Market Crisis and now this latest one. The fact remains that one of the aftermaths of the 1980s was that Japan eventually used their dollars to buy several US assets. Examples include the buying of Columbia Tristar for Sony Pictures and the Sony Music buyouts. They also bought large interests in real estate and other markets. The Chinese are now doing the same all over Europe and the USA wherever they can.
Japan did produce several new products in the 90s such as blue/violet/green/white LEDs, hybrid cars, etc. But they lost some of their thunder when they gave up the so called lower end of the electronics market to the Koreans and Taiwanese. They never quite recovered from it. This means all consumer electronics are tendentiously being manufactured by corporations from those countries.
There is nothing stopping China from increasing domestic consumption in the long term. In fact they have increasingly been increasing their internal consumption. You can even buy overpriced pieces of glorified junk like the iPhone in there.
That would be assuming power lines are cheaper to build than natural gas pipelines and have less losses. Which they don't. Otherwise you wouldn't ever see a natural gas electric power plant at all.
There was a time when electric, steam and gasoline competed against each other with no clear winner. That was until gasoline engines got better. If something changes in the equation, another mode of generating motive power may be more competitive.
Portable game consoles are headed for oblivion thanks to smartphones. The same may partially happen to other console uses thanks to the tablet format. Eventually your own TV will be the console and you will not need to buy a separate device at all...
Desertec is an interesting project. The pan-European energy grid is a good idea. However it does not solve the problem quite so easily. There is little reason the Spanish or even North Africa won't want to keep the energy for themselves, or that the factories won't move closer to the energy sources to reduce transmission loses.
The solution is hydro and nuclear. Wind is another factor to consider but you then need to redesign the rest of the grid to accommodate. Same thing for solar, which is getting close to being cheap enough, assuming the market doesn't implode all of a sudden.
It has been one of the reasons for the EU's economic crisis this irrational push into renewables and the draconian rules of the Kyoto treaty. Still it was better than the current idiotic energy conservation mantras.
Iran had one of the best armies in the area built using the latest Western technology. Including Chieftain tanks, F-14 Tomcat fighters, etc. However the military heads after the coup were basically religious zealots with no kind of proper military training. Only in later campaigns were some of these people pressed back onto service and the war took a different turn.
This happened around the end of the XIXth century beginning of the XXth century when torpedo boats were popular. They were gasoline powered and faster than the coal powered behemoths of the day. Eventually the behemoths got faster and destroyers were added to the fleet to screen these kinds of boats.
They are also in the process of building an organic carrier group including missile destroyers, attack submarines.
They reverse engineered the Su-27 and Su-33 into the J-11 and J-15 respectively.
They made their first credible indigenous fighter the J-10.
They showed a stealth fighter-bomber prototype the J-20.
They launched the Tiangong-1 space station module which will be docked probably next year.
They are in the process of becoming the largest space launching nation in the world in the next decade once Long March 5 comes online and they start increasing the quantity and quality of their satellite systems..
They have their own copies of the Sokol and Orlan suits. The Orlan was based on a suit formerly intended for the first Soviet Cosmonaut. So they can do the spacesuits quite fine.
There was a prototype. It was called the YF-22. In fact they made two of those with different kinds of engines: GE and P&W. P&W won the engine contract.
Oh they already have destroyers (Type 052C) and frigate escorts (Type 054A) as well. Their nuclear submarines suck and are hopelessly behind (Type 093). Probably because of all the money being spent in the carrier program. They have been training deck landings on a simulated platform they built inland pictured in the joke article here.
The Germans also had a shortage of strategic materials near the end of WWII. They could no longer make decent high temperature alloys, dense armor, or penetrator rounds. Their tank armor and munitions were basically a POS made from regular steel by that time. As for jets, they could have made a fighter much sooner had Heinkel's prototype He 280 been put to production instead of waffling around.
If they cannot do it today, they will be able to do it soon. In addition to those DF-5A's ICBM you people are mentioning the Chinese have some rather laughable SLBMs plus they have supposedly been delivering their DF-41 ICBM to second artillery for some time now. DF-41 is supposed to have enough range to hit the entire CONUS rather than just the West Coast.
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They are already in the PAK-FA project so there isn't much of a big deal in this. My guess is they cannot way for that project to be finished, so they are buying these fighters as an interim solution. The Chinese have increased their air force just way too much recently...
More likely it is being fueled by local coal. But yes, the number of people driving cars in China is rapidly increasing.
Japan did produce several new products in the 90s such as blue/violet/green/white LEDs, hybrid cars, etc. But they lost some of their thunder when they gave up the so called lower end of the electronics market to the Koreans and Taiwanese. They never quite recovered from it. This means all consumer electronics are tendentiously being manufactured by corporations from those countries.
There is nothing stopping China from increasing domestic consumption in the long term. In fact they have increasingly been increasing their internal consumption. You can even buy overpriced pieces of glorified junk like the iPhone in there.
Not to mention platinum, until someone gets the SOFC ceramics working in a vibration prone environment.
That would be assuming power lines are cheaper to build than natural gas pipelines and have less losses. Which they don't. Otherwise you wouldn't ever see a natural gas electric power plant at all.
There was a time when electric, steam and gasoline competed against each other with no clear winner. That was until gasoline engines got better. If something changes in the equation, another mode of generating motive power may be more competitive.
There were EV-1s with NiMH batteries but due to licensing issues (Texaco bought the required patents) they stopped being manufactured.
Portable game consoles are headed for oblivion thanks to smartphones. The same may partially happen to other console uses thanks to the tablet format. Eventually your own TV will be the console and you will not need to buy a separate device at all...
The solution is hydro and nuclear. Wind is another factor to consider but you then need to redesign the rest of the grid to accommodate. Same thing for solar, which is getting close to being cheap enough, assuming the market doesn't implode all of a sudden.
It has been one of the reasons for the EU's economic crisis this irrational push into renewables and the draconian rules of the Kyoto treaty. Still it was better than the current idiotic energy conservation mantras.
Iran had one of the best armies in the area built using the latest Western technology. Including Chieftain tanks, F-14 Tomcat fighters, etc. However the military heads after the coup were basically religious zealots with no kind of proper military training. Only in later campaigns were some of these people pressed back onto service and the war took a different turn.
An Aegis missile *might* be able to stop one.
This happened around the end of the XIXth century beginning of the XXth century when torpedo boats were popular. They were gasoline powered and faster than the coal powered behemoths of the day. Eventually the behemoths got faster and destroyers were added to the fleet to screen these kinds of boats.
That's what the Arleigh Burke aka "Aegis" frigates are there for.
They are also in the process of building an organic carrier group including missile destroyers, attack submarines.
They reverse engineered the Su-27 and Su-33 into the J-11 and J-15 respectively.
They made their first credible indigenous fighter the J-10.
They showed a stealth fighter-bomber prototype the J-20.
They launched the Tiangong-1 space station module which will be docked probably next year.
They are in the process of becoming the largest space launching nation in the world in the next decade once Long March 5 comes online and they start increasing the quantity and quality of their satellite systems..
First Soviet Cosmonaut in the Moon that is...
They have their own copies of the Sokol and Orlan suits. The Orlan was based on a suit formerly intended for the first Soviet Cosmonaut. So they can do the spacesuits quite fine.
Russia manufactures SPARC compatible processors for some time now. One example MCST-R1000.
The Star Trek film was great compared with TOS.
There was a prototype. It was called the YF-22. In fact they made two of those with different kinds of engines: GE and P&W. P&W won the engine contract.
Yet.
Oh they already have destroyers (Type 052C) and frigate escorts (Type 054A) as well. Their nuclear submarines suck and are hopelessly behind (Type 093). Probably because of all the money being spent in the carrier program. They have been training deck landings on a simulated platform they built inland pictured in the joke article here.
So can we invade North Korea now?
The Germans also had a shortage of strategic materials near the end of WWII. They could no longer make decent high temperature alloys, dense armor, or penetrator rounds. Their tank armor and munitions were basically a POS made from regular steel by that time. As for jets, they could have made a fighter much sooner had Heinkel's prototype He 280 been put to production instead of waffling around.
If they cannot do it today, they will be able to do it soon. In addition to those DF-5A's ICBM you people are mentioning the Chinese have some rather laughable SLBMs plus they have supposedly been delivering their DF-41 ICBM to second artillery for some time now. DF-41 is supposed to have enough range to hit the entire CONUS rather than just the West Coast.