China’s military power Modernisation in sheep’s clothing Aug 26th 2011, 7:57 by J.M. | BEIJING The Economist THE good news, as suggested by the Pentagon’s latest annual report on China’s military power, is that Chinese leaders are still eager to avoid confrontation with other powers and focus on beefing up the economy. The bad news, it hints, is that this might not last. With its rapidly improving military capability (described by the Pentagon in great detail), China has the wherewithal to challenge the security status quo in the Pacific as well as potential motives to do so. The report is diplomatically couched—though from China’s perspective, not nearly enough. It hints at considerable unease about long-term trends in China’s military buildup. The last few months have seen some headline-grabbing aspects of this: an assertion by the Pentagon in December that China was making faster progress than expected on an aircraft-carrier-killing ballistic missile,…