So we are in agreement. Your opinion doesn't represent the Chinese and your ideologies are not Chinese.
I would like to point to out every single post regarding to "outlasting the enemy" has the assumption that the opponent is US. As in, the current superpower and currently the strongest military power in the world. Understandably, a conflict of this level will not be short term.
I am not sure WHICH Prussian war you are talking about. Because while Austro-Prussian War matches the "short" description, the Franco-Prussia war matches the "spread influence" part better, but it is certainly not short. Of course, Prussia fought a lot of wars, you gonna have to be more specific than that. Regardless, you are talking about a nation that is 348,702 square km in size at its greatest (after the unification) and significantly smaller than beforehand. Prussia simply doesn't have the strategic depth and reserve to engage in a prolong conflict. In comparison, in 2012, US and China accounts for 65.7% of the total industry output of the entire world. (US: 29929.7 (19.1%) vs China: 57690.8 (46.6)
Are you seriously gonna argue their conflict is gonna be the same scale as a third rate European nation?
You mean the USSR in Afghanistan where the opponent is trained by US, armed by Chinese and financed by British and French? Or you mean the American in Vietnam in which the Americans are not even allow to enter North Vietnam territory by Chinese?
I am not sure where did the weapon comment come from.
Yeah, because J10, J11 and Su-27 doesn't exist. J8, J7 also doesn't exist. Consider the J6 held up pretty well against F4, I am pretty comfortable with J10, J11 and Su-27.
No, the fundamental reason US achieved superpower status at the end of WWII is because it had the number 1 industrial production in the world since 1900. USSR, by the 60s, had the second largest industrial production of the world. Their military capacity is simply an extension of their industry might. In fact, WWII delayed US' ascend to superpower because while European nations are weakened by the war, it also disrupted the world financial system so US cannot bring its economic might to bear.
Erm, I would like to point out Zhenghe's fleet is a exploration/diplomatic envoy/trading fleet. His ship can fight, but navy is not the job description of that fleet. In fact, Zhenghe's fleet is, at best, a minor branch of the Ming maritime force. Better known battle for the Ming navy can be observed in 1591 and 1592 where the Ming navy defeated Portugal. Defeating the naval force of Netherland in 1602 and 1633 respectively. Remember, Netherland navy was one of the best in Europe back then.
What exactly do you mean naval history? Do you mean the length of the country possess a navy? The industry might to produce and maintain such a navy? Because US doesn't have really have a "naval history" either before WWII. In fact, its navy at the beginning of WWII can, in many part, being considered to be outdated comparing to the Japanese or the British and the British has more than 300 years of global domination than US.
You are seriously saying China's priority to secure the ability to depend homeland first and then consider projecting that power to be "short-sighted"? I apologize if I am wrong, but I am gonna take a wild guess that you are young, probably born in the past decade or late 90s.
When industrial revolution happened, China, for a number of reasons, not the least is the semi-colonial structure of governing by Qing dynasty, began to lag behind in the world. This begun to shown since the opium war in 1839. In the ensuing century (until PRC's founding in 1949), China were not able to industrialize and had been vulnerable to foreign invasions. In fact, even after the founding of PRC, the threat of military invasion was a persistent threat over China. Luckily, due to the military strength of PRC and emphasis on industrialization, China eventually began to catch up. However, it was not until the collapse of USSR in 1991 where the sword of Damascus which was foreign invasion was finally removed from China. Of course, it was not until 2002 where China finally reached number 5 in world GDP. (Of course, it has pushed back down to 6th place in 2003 and 2004, China's place in top five global economic power is not truly secured until 2005).
In short, it isn't so much as short-sighted. It is more like that China was not CAPABLE of project its power previously.
I have heard similar, childish arguments such as "if Deng's economic reform and opening up policy is so good, why didn't China do the same thing in 1950s? Mao must be very bad at economics!" This is absolute non-sense because the situation in 1980 was not at all applicable in 1950. In 1980s, China already has a complete industry base. This means while the Chinese industry in 1980s is still technologically behind in many aspects, it has developed enough to compete in the global without getting crushed by foreign competition. In 1950s, the Chinese industry doesn't really exist and if the market was opened back then, the Chinese industry would have been destroyed by the foreign products.
Well, of course, you hate Korean war. Korean war meant PLA kicking UN force all the way from Chinese border down to 38 degree parallel and it marked the end of a century where Europeans can walk all over the Chinese. The Chinese are proud of it, so you must have hated it.