[SampleMan]

Worse than the worst days of the Cold War???? I think that's a tremendous stretch. Are you suggesting that we could walk around inside of the Soviet Union? When it comes to the number of ICBMs, submarines, and other large weapon systems, I don't think that there are any big mysteries.

Building ships, constructing very large missiles, and deploying both are very hard if not impossible to conceal to overhead imagery.

I'm not for discounting the Chinese, but I'm not prone to give them invincible status either.

If the question is whether we can stop a PLAA/PLAAN invasion of Taiwan conventionally, the answer is, "Yes." If the question is whether the Chinese would fair well in a nuclear exchange with us, the answer is, "No."

[GOP_1900AD]

No of course we could not walk around in the USSR. But we had more access then, than we do now with the PRC. Even beyond their Communist systems, the Chinese are innately the most secretive nation on Earth. They've been that way for a very long time.

Building missiles is not all that hard to conceal. They are built indoors, not in open shipyards. It is even easier to conceal it if you don't final assemble them and instead, kit the parts. They can be assembled rapidly, using demand flow manufacturing (e.g. Kanban system). Pardon the pun, but it's not rocket science.