China is increasing its capacity to challenge the United States across a spectrum of capabilities and is likely to do so, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. “China is increasingly assertive and the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system,” the report said. “Today, China has transformed what was an obsolete military into one that can challenge the U.S. military across the spectrum of conventional and unconventional capabilities,” the report added. The report said that the Pentagon recognized China as a “pacing threat” in most areas, but that the communist regime was still vulnerable to territorial disputes and the pressures associated with a developing economy. It identified five key areas that China’s communist leadership was investing in as part of its attempt to challenge the United States. Those …