The rapid economic growth of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since 1979 has enabled the country to implement an extensive military modernization program. Since the mid-1990s, China?s military reforms have accelerated and defense spending has steadily increased. In China?s 2008 white paper on defense, China projected that it would lay a "solid foundation" for the development of national defense and the armed forces by 2010, "accomplish major mechanization and make major progress in informatization by 2020," and reach modernization of its national defense and armed forces by the middle of the century. China?s process of modernizing its armed forces has involved the development of indigenously designed weapons systems?some of which appeared to undergo a process of development, procurement, and/or deployment that outpaced the estimates of U.S. and other foreign observers.