My point was that, as usual, you were using your tiny little field of data, usually filtered through journalism school graduates, and drawing massive conclusions from it.

If you actually did look at the data, you would have found that Chinese military spending in inflation-adjusted currency was pretty much flat during the 1970s and 1980s, and started a rapid and steady climb around the middle of the 1990s.

For the record, I don't think Clinton, or any other president, had squat to do with this trend. The most likely answer is that Chinese GDP began a large upward growth trend at the same time, and the Chinese could simply afford to spend more. One other clue supporting this theory is that while the ratio of military spending to GDP was enormous back in the 70s and early 80s, it's dropped considerably, and despite huge increases in military spending, the ratio remains almost flat.