China

[Deadly_Nightshade]

China could take over North Korea and possibly some of India and Mongolia, but i think that Japan and South Korea would be able to hold out against the attack.

(if there was ever one...)

 

DN

[Fenghuang]

It's extremely unlikely that China could just knock out the US if it wanted to. 

 

One, it would be a massive military movement, much bigger than Pearl Harbor.  That is pretty difficult to conceal from even the daftest intelligence agencies.

 

Two, even though the US is disliked around the world, not many countries will stand for a full scale invasion.  China isn't exactly liked more than the US.  In fact, the US could probably get away with attacking China.

 

Three, China has to know that a nuclear attack will lead to a nuclear response.  It didn't happen in the Cold War and it won't happen with China.  I'd worry more about Islamic fundamentalists, as they don't seem concerned with protecting their own assets.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

That was the point of the dude I talked to though. If they take out all of our nuclear munitions which is entirely possible in the scenario he proposed (you let off a nuclear warhead on top of a silo and the vacuum sucks out the missles and detonates or destroys them in the maelstrom of the mushroom cloud) there would be no retaliation unless someone else stepped up. It wouldn't be a military movement because they'd be launching them off of retrofitted merchant ships, we get tons of Chinese merchant ships coming into US harbors daily. They'd place them in ships that were scheduled to drop off cargo in US ports, only instead of making landfall they stop 100 miles out from the coast and launch the warheads...right before we start scanning their frieghters for munitions. If the Navy wasn't so tied up over in the Middle East this wouldn't be that big a deal, according to the guy I talked to they'd detect them and take them out lickety split. But we're too short staffed on our own coasts, and the Coast Guard isn't well enough equipped to detect and stop nuclear warheads launched 100 miles off the coast before they hit.

 

Make no mistake, China knows where every single one of our Military Bases are thanks to that spook plane they got their hands on, even the secret ones. They know where every single silo is, they could pull this off pretty damn easy. And this is all according to someone who was just discharged from the Navy this last year. I've thought about it and it sounds hella plausible.

 

 

 

 

Anyhow, why doesn't somebody ask Fingerman? He lives in China! (About the stuff in the video, not the plan of attack.)

[Azarkon]

I doubt it. North Korea, btw, wouldn't need conquest. They're already on the same side. And if the US attempts an embargo on China in the current political landscape, many other nations would be on their side as well.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Make no mistake, China knows where every single one of our Military Bases are thanks to that spook plane they got their hands on, even the secret ones.

 

That's not quite right, I know a guy who works at NASA Langley, and he said, off the record of-course, that they wouldn't be able to get much information from the plane...

 

DN

[Fenghuang]

Hope so.

[Eddo36]

You know that by making that film, he screwed all those Chinese people shown in it because they probably all got abducted by the gov't.

[Judge Hades]

I doubt it.  North Korea, btw, wouldn't need conquest.  They're already on the same side.  And if the US attempts an embargo on China in the current political landscape, many other nations would be on their side as well.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Its not a issue to do the embargo now. The opportunity to do so was years ago and Bush Sr. f**ked it up. As far as I am concerned the Chinese government as well witht he US government can go to hell together, hand and hand.

[kumquatq3]

Eh, to put it in Galactic Civ 2 terms, I think we need a cultural victory on this one.

[julianw]

You have to understand a simple rule: the common people do not care all that much about politics.  What they do care about is the economy.  As long as the Chinese economy remains strong, the country has a very high chance of emerging peacefully and becoming a democracy.  As soon as that is taken away China, like Germany after WW1, will fall straight into extremism, and with a country comprising 1/5th of the world's population, the results will be far worse than WW2.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I remember Clinton stated similar points in a speech defending his foreign policies regarding China: a economically strong and politically stable China is much more favorable to US than a weak China in political chaos and its power rests in the hands of military hard liners.

 

I don't doubt the possibilities of minor military conflicts between US and China, but I am quite positive that neither the Chinese people and their government nor the American people and their government wouldn't do anything in their power to prevent this from ever happening.

 

As for whether China is interested in total war on any nation, the answer is NO. The Chinese leadership since the start of its civilization has always been under the pressure to keep its land intact. Everyone in China knows that the reason the Chinese government right now desperately want to unite Taiwan with mainland is that no leader of China wish to be remembered as the loser who lost Taiwan. Personally, as long as the Taiwan people are happy, I couldn't give a damn about the whole issue, but I guess when 5000 years of pride is on the line, some people just can't grasp the idea that the whole earth is but one nation. However, rest assured, China has no ambition of conquering any other nation. For 5000 years, Chinese only fought their neighbors when provoked and most of times ended up on the losing side and have to submit to the rulings of other races. They spend generations of manpower just to a build a wall long enough to keep the foreigners out. Unless its culture changes radically any time soon, the rest of the world should have no fear of an invasion from China.

Edited April 14, 2006 by julianw

[Fenghuang]

We need a Hegemon. Where's Peter Wiggin when you need him?

[Eddo36]

If we ever get into a war with China, it would be really more simple than Iraq. Just ignite a revolution. Those Chinese don't have an extremist religion to jihad or crap like that. Our F-22's will be all we need to handle their military.

 

Iraq on the other hand is a quagmire.

[Azarkon]

Yeah, but a revolution in China is as likely to turn against you as it is to benefit you. I thought that Iraq *should've* been a lesson, but apparently not.

[Fenghuang]

Dude, you're talking to Eddo.

[LoneWolf16]

A lot of this information seems to be typical fear-mongering. That's the absolute last thing we need in so delicate a situation...we don't need some paranoid ex-military fool waiting out in the middle of the Atlantic firing his assault rifle at passing chinese merchant ships.

 

Of course, it's important to think about the possibility of an attack, and prepare accordingly, but do not...I repeat...do NOT let that fear of an impending war drive your actions during peace time.

[Fenghuang]

They haven't driven my actions, and if it does happen I'll be directly in the blast zone with no more actions, no worries.

 

And he's going into the National Guard because he's of the belief that the more people shipped out the more people will be home and the country will be safer. The guy's braver than me, no way in hell I'm going military at a time like this.

[Surreptishus]

In the hypothetical situation of the Chinese arming merchant boats to attack bases on the west coast I'm thinking they would do so from the Pacific Ocean

[LoneWolf16]

In the hypothetical situation of the Chinese arming merchant boats to attack bases on the west coast I'm thinking they would do so from the Pacific Ocean

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well sure, if they want to go the obvious route. "

[Kaftan Barlast]

Nuclear war ceased to be a viable option the moment Soviet developed their first nukes. And nowadays the chance that a nuclear "sneak attack" would disable the retaliatory capabilities of the US or China, is so low that its ludicorus to even think about it. Your ICBMs would be in the air and heading for China in the same minute that the fishing-boat nukes appeared on the radar.

[Atreides]

Yeah. The retaliatory nukes from the subs would be headed out to China from their coast pretty fast.

 

As for the home eviction thing, I watched something on BBC that said developers get a hand from the government to evict the locals off prime development land. While obviously the locals may not want to move, the situation wasn't as bad as it was previously since the property market's fallen. That time the evicted people were getting terrible compensation that was nowhere near their property market value.

 

As for China's politics, I think it'll be determined by the young generation that's wired to the net. They obviously yearn for freedom as we see them switching to blogs etc to circumvent the censorship. It's not like America's bastions of the internet like Google, Microsoft are making it any easier but whatever. On the other hand those dudes can be pretty radical/nationalistic in their own right. It didn't take much for them to get out on the streets looking for Japanese to lynch.

 

China - Have tanks, will roll.

[metadigital]

Sure, but that doesn't mean we interfere in every single affair.  We need to mind our own store first, take care of our own people first, then take care of the rest of the world.  After the crap that China has pulled with blatant violations of human rights we should absolutely have nothing to do with them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The practical reality is that NO country can exist WITHOUT trading with China.

 

No matter what happens, China's economy will SURPASS the US economy in the next three decades or so. You can't argue with bald facts. If the US did not grant China most favoured trading status, it would be to the US's detriment, not China's.

 

Sidebar:

The Chinese are an interesting society: no "invading culture" has ever dominated them: they adopt, integrate and assimilate all influences to make them "Chinese". Let's call it sinocizing. Even now, when patents are copyright are only just becoming legally enforceable, the Chinese have their own parallel technology for just about everything; from mobile telephony to Digital Versative Disc encoding standards. What's more, they have a policy of built-in sinocizing all foreign influences: when a company seeks permission to set up in China, half of the management staff must be Chinese and there must be a process to create a "Chinese version" of the company, so that most (all) the IP is transferred, and that China will never be forced to compete with the other undeveloped nations of the world in commodities markets, alone (coffee, sugar, raw materials, etc).

 

-+-+-

 

China isn't going to attack the US. It's not in her interests, nor in character. She wins by byzantine infiltration and subversion: the Chinese Emperor was the most powerful man in the world a thousand years ago, and their political system has been subject to sino-kaizen for five thousand years. Now if China decided to invade Australia, for example, then there is precious little anyone else could or would do ...

 

We live in interesting times.

[WinterSun]

Well, if China starts deporting it's prisoners instead of executing them, invading Australia could be a possibility "

Edited April 15, 2006 by WinterSun

[Deadly_Nightshade]

We need a Hegemon.  Where's Peter Wiggin when you need him?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't know...

(but I do know who you're talking about... )

 

DN

Edited April 15, 2006 by Deadly_Nightshade

[dufflover]

Now if China decided to invade Australia, for example, then there is precious little anyone else could or would do ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh geez choose Australia why don't you .

I don't like George Bush but if they invaded while he was still in charge I reckon he and Tony Blair would do something about it (not necessarily some nuclear war).

[metadigital]

Nah. It would just be a tactical retreat behind the 21st century equivalent of the Brisbane Line, expanded to the whole continent.

 

Don't think the bountiful raw materials and huge open spaces haven't attracted the lustful gaze of other countries ... "

[Walsingham]

China doesn't need to start a nuclear war. All it has to do is, like, buy tonnes of US dollars to scare the US economically, aggressively trade with them to offer a positive incentive to avoid war. Then it can act serruptitiously by arming all potential other opponents of the US so the US has to spend a fortune around the world trying to protect its interests while the Chinese get richer.

 

Hey, waitaminute...