China's future at sea?

[Bort]

If you haven't noticed, lately china has been undertaking a huge buildup of its naval forces. They have launched several new classes of stealthy surface ships including one with a phased array AAW radar and VLS like an aegis. They have also built a new diesel sub and are working on two new nuclear sub designs. Add to that continued purchaces of Russian hardware like Sovremmennyys, Kilos, perhaps TU-22M Backfires in the future and the ex-ukrainian aircraft carrier Varyag that they appear to be fixing up in order to return to sevice, as well as possible and it would seem the Chinese are definately looking to become major players on both the regional and global naval stages. With the United States preoccupation in the Middle East and shifting focus from big high intensity wars to smaller low level wars against far weaker opponents and Donald Rumsfeld's willingness to cut ship and submarine levels and have the navy concentrate more on stikes against land targets, rather than prioritizing sea contol, it would seem that America is in a poor position to respond to a future conflict in east asia over perhaps Taiwan or the Spratly's involving China. Should the US and her allies be paying more attention to the situation, I say yes. What do you think?

Some links to more info:
http://www.sinodefence.com
http://www.china-defense.com
http://www.varyagworld.com