Policy makers should know the importance of the tech investment, and they may hide the tendency from the public for election. There is always a difference between "right thing to do" (hard work, setting directions, rules and restrictions) and "what public want" (not to work, do everything without consequence). all political systems are balancing these 2. However, now everyone is saying about China threat, making a strawman and asking for the votes. This is not important to the US in fact. To be better is the purpose, not to be the best.

About the waste, it's like "Institutional corruption", all are legalized. So many people are living on the government budgets, that's how it works. So, spending more in tech may be necessary.

From a report of "Space Foundation", space investment from the US is 51.8B (57% in global), while China is 13.3B(15%), all other countries are 25.1B. As for military space investment, the US investment is more than 80%.
It's clear, the US is still investing space tech, much more than other countries. China is just developing in a normal scale and pace. The US is going to lead in space tech for decades.

boy, you must have never been to China nor known about China... "Kill the guys next door, kidnap and rape their women and make them your slave/wives". Seems more like the US.

True. So-called "stealing" is just a strawman to justify the hostile actions.
According to the high-tech patents and top papers recent years, China is catching up very fast, and there is no way to stop: China has talent, money, and policy.
After all, products, patents, and papers show the facts, not CIA reports.

Good questions. Actually not so many readers care about your questions... They just want to blame someone...

Sounds reasonable to me.

Just take a rest. I guess India was also purchasing more test equipment than ever that time. Simply because India is also growing very fast, their hospitals needed more equipment... These news are basically Survivorship Biases: "Shoot first, then draw the target".

Australia sells coal to other countries, and China buys from others. The growing price is a global problem, because the global coal cannot meets the demands. Not like what you said. Also, if export from China is decreasing, the global price of all products would be higher. welcome to a global economy.

totally. Another Trump game.

They are intelligence agents... **Every country** tacitly allow some agents doing something not important. Back in cold war, there are many cases just like this one. They are simply diplomatic incidents.

everywhere, all the time... not only the US, not right now. Good parenting is really hard, but having kids is so easy...

Sounds reasonable..

I don't get it. Which government force people to have kids?

I want to ask this also.lol

not convenient if so.