About Africa and the CCP's navy, if the United States doesn't have the diplomatic or foreign-aid means to block such a move, shame on us. That said, I remember walking my construction sites in Beijing. At times I couldn't be sure whether something was being built or taken down. The point being, unless the CCP military somehow occupies an alternative universe of quality, quality control, maintenance, and repair, I am entirely agnostic as to whether such a navy, despite its high-tech, shiny-object appearance, actually can work. I've read the annoyingly ambiguous "somewhere" that its actual capabilty -- here refering to the PLA generally -- is at the outside about two weeks in a hot conflict. How one gets at this number, I am not sure, but it sounds about right. I can imagine PLA command-and-control evaporating pretty quickly, which in some ways is a scary thought, with logistical capablilites imploding soon thereafter. Do I want this notion put to the test. No. About the book club, I am now reading "Land of Big Numbers." The first few stories are sad. One of the characters, Cao Cao, a dithering but sincere gentleman who believes in the party and wants to gain the respect of others by building a plane from discarded parts, kind of reminds me of XJP and his ambitions.