But, what makes this string of symbolic Chinese beachheads in the American economic heartland an especially volatile issue at this moment is discussion in the US Senate of protective tariffs against Chinese imports, together with a forthcoming US Defense Department assessment that is reported to describe China as a potentially adversarial power. Among other things, the Pentagon’s assessment is said to criticize China’s leaders for expanding their country’s military in the absence of any discernible external threat, and for various other “known unkowns,” such as opaqueness concerning the real size of China’s military budget.