China's "Joint" Problem

This is an analysis of the recent and highly-publicized maneuvers between Russi and China, from Strategypage:

With much fanfare, China and Russia recently held, for the first time in about a generation, “combined” military exercises, in the Amur region. The exercise was more for the publicity, than the military, value. So journalists were allowed a lot of access to the operation, especially in headquarters. This is unusual, especially for the secretive (especially on military matters) Chinese. The maneuvers were hardly “combined,” as there was no unified command. Chinese and Russian troops operated cooperatively, but never actually interacted very much. Russian observers with the Chinese reported that the PLA has little “joint” capability.

...What this all shows is that the Chinese have a way to go before they possess a world class military. The hyped up headlines in the media (and Pentagon budget requests) represent a future threat that is not here yet, and may take a long, long time in arriving.

I for one am glad to see this, as I consider China a threat, but not a major threat to America. Mainly because to get to us, the Reds would have to go through other Asian powers, such as Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. The Pentagon likes to worry about China, or make you worry, to justify increasingly expensive weapons such as fighters, supercarriers, and nuclear subs. To them, its always the war they want, not the war we get. Remember Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq?