This was one of Drudge's topics tonight. The ChiComs just launched 18 new submarines and 23 amphibious vehicles.
The concern is for the safety of Taiwan, and alarm at the Pentagon about the military buildup and the bid for Unocal. All financed, of course, using the revenue from the goods that they're selling to Walmart and others.
Boycott China. Tax Chinese imports prohibitively. Require a very visible red star label on Chinese merchanidse. Require % Chinese content be visibly displayed on labels of anything.
Not having heard Drudge it's hard to respond.
But there is no indication of them having launched 18 subs recently. The current build rate from everything I've read is about 1-2 subs per year.
Beware of what is called an amphibious ship. These numbers include LCMs and LCUs which are nothing more than landing craft. While not dismissing them, they have small capacity.
For a source I prefer to use globalsecurity.com, whenever I do fact checking their numbers are usually quite accurate. For the PLAN here's their numbers http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/navy.htm feel free to poke around.
They also do a decent job of analysis of the taiwan situation: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/taiwan.htm