China just started 10 year ago, she is still doing the catch up work, but China is catching up fast across the board. No progress and development in any fields can just go along with themselves, they all need funds, all of them need strong backing up from the economy, the economy is the ultimate deciding factor.
10 years ago China was still a rather poor country with GDP much smaller than Japan, now China's GDP is 3 times of Japans, it took only one decade. We'll see what China can do in next decade.
On what basis can you say China just started 10 years ago?
According to most historians and many a proud Chinese, many of them hardcore nationalists, China is 5,000 years old.
If you are referring to the People's Republic of China, was it not established in 1949? By my calculation, that would be about 72 years ago. Do you disagree with this calculation?
If you are referring to the opening up of Chinese economy and the reforms initiated by former leader Deng Xiaoping, were they not started in 1979?
I disagree with you that economy is the be all and end all for a country.
Otherwise, Indonesia with a GDP at market exchange rates and Purchasing Power Parity very close to that of Russia (more than 65% at exchange rates, and more than 80% at purchasing power parity) would be almost equally as powerful militarily, in scientific and technological advancements, in geopolitical influence and in intellectual achievements, with all due respect to our Indonesian brothers and sisters.
Nevertheless, I am yet to see any Indonesian designed micrprocessor with indigenously developed Instruction Set Architecture. To be fair, neither the Chinese nor the Indians have so far developed a microprocessor with an indigenously developed instruction set architecture from what has been revealed publicly.
Likewise, I am yet to see any supersonic bomber, nuclear powered submarine, submarine launched ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, supersonic fighter jets, surfacet to air missiles, anti ballistic missiles, early warning radars, AEW&C, main battle tanks, destroyers, cruisers, frigates, diesel-electric (AIP) submarines, self propelled howitzer and numerous other types of equipment used in the defense sector developed by Indonesians.
There is an acute lack of any form of a functioning space programme within the territory of Indonesia.
There is no known semiconductor wafer fabrication facility in Indonesia although there may not be full blown commercially profitable semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities within the Russian Federation, they do possess semiconductor wafer fabs used for pilot production of IC used for defence applications. Mass production is often delegated to Taiwan at TSMC or Malaysia at Silterra and X-Fab.
By the way, X-Fab may be notionally considered German but their operations in Malaysia, apparently, owe their existence to a former Malaysian owned entreprise known as 1st Silicon (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, which was subsequently acquired by German firm X-Fab.
Still, the government of the Malaysian state of Sarawak is said to own a significant stake in X-Fab and in that sense, we might as well consider at least two "indigenous" Malaysian semiconductor wafer foundries - SilTerra and X-Fab.
Indonesia is also yet to produce an indigenous automobile brand, yet. Unlike Malaysia, which has produced at least two - Proton and Perodua. While Geely from China has recently acquired a 49.9% stake in Proton, the former PM and statesman Dr Mahathir Mohamed mooted the idea of creating a new, third national car brand.
Likewise, Iranian ballistic missile arsenal - in the variety and quantity of them present in their inventory easily outclass the nonexistent ballistic missile arsenal of Indonesia.
Iran has also managed to launch a payload to Low Earth Orbit (not a huge payload by any means, just to be clear about it) and they have achieved this feat on more than one occasion. Indonesia - so far - is yet to achieve any modicum of success.
Iranian Bavar - 373 SAM system is also not matched by any known indigenous system in the wider Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, ASEAN, Latin America, Oceania and Western European regions.
Pakistan has also managed to develop nuclear warheads, nuclear reactors, ballistic missiles of medium range, cruise missiles, affordable low-end fighter aircraft (with foreign, Chinese assistance much like the recently revealed Korean KF-X), main battle tanks and small arms of various types.
Turkish defence industry, under the close supervision of President Erdogan, has embarked on more than 600 projects, reportedly and have made significant progress in a short period of time in at least a few of them. Listing 600 projects within a single reply may be seen as spam, therefore, I refrain from doing so.
Moreover, "Israeli"/Zionist regime has an economy which is puny, tinier than not only Indonesia's but also Iranian, Turkish, Saudi, Emirati, Australian, Taiwanese, Brazilian or Canadian economy.
Yet, its air force - certainly as measured by inventory and solely by inventory as Zionist member
@500 did in another thread - is more advanced and powerful than any of the countries in the list above.
When we add in the quality of the training, integration, indigenous equipment available, EW capabilities, close alliance with their protector/"ally" USA and numerous other factors, there is no reason to believe
any of the countries listed above have a stronger air force than tiny "Israel"/Zionist regime.
The political influence in both the USA-led West and in the Russia-led CIS enjoyed by the "Israelis" is also enormous and that is another element of "power" that Indonesian GDP, or the GDP of any other country, can not come close to matching.
Considering all of the above and many other factors, too many of them to list here, I am inclined to disagree with your opinion that economy is the be all and end all for a country, its influence and estimation of its hard and soft power.
