China: July 26, 2005

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  Many Taiwanese believe that China's military buildup, and unrest by pro-democratic Chinese, will cause a collapse of the Chinese government similar to what happened in the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. This is unlikely. First, Chinese military spending is, as a percentage of  GDP, much less than it was of the Soviet Union. China spends less than five percent of GDP (the exact figure is murky, and a state secret), while the Soviet Union was spending over 20 percent (poor accounting made it impossible to nail down the figure precisely.) While democracy is popular in China, economic success, and reducing corruption,  is even more so. Taiwanese businesses are major factors in the growth of the Chinese economy, and in sustaining the corruption problem by paying the needed bribes to keep their businesses going.