Liberate China...can't! They are a nuclear superpower. Any country right now with nuclear capability falls under that catagory. At one time is was just the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., now there are alot more players. I found a site with some information I was looking for describing world thinking regarding nukes...or at least the U.S. and U.S.S.R's.:

The two superpowers justified this build-up of warheads by saying that the threat to the other side of massive retaliation was enough to ensure that they would never be used. This theory is known as â??deterrenceâ?? and it says that, because of the terrible consequences to both sides of a nuclear war, neither side would risk starting one. The situation became known as â??mutually assured destructionâ?? (with the rather appropriate acronym of MAD).
http://www.comeclean.org.uk/articles.php?articleID=14

Now it seems like any two bit dictator is getting his paws on this shit...which brings us into the age of high energy beams.:

In electron beam weapons a series of step up electric transformers may be used to condition the electric current produced by the alternating current electric generator to have a potential difference (voltage ), of from 100,000,000 volts to 1,000,000,000 volts .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_beam_weapon

What a wonderful world we live in!