OT: China's new carrier

[ShadoWarrior]

It would put my country in a truly awful position too - we'd have to choose between losing our economic prosperity (China's demand for raw materials is the only thing sparing Australia from the global economic downturn that's affecting every other western economy) or turning our backs on the strongest and closest military ally we've ever had.

That's actually a false choice. In any Sino-American war there would be an economic blockade of China. If Australia tried to sit it out as a 'neutral', and continue to supply war-critical materials to China, Australia would be subjected to the effects of the blockade. In effect, Australia would become at war with the US. That's not a situation that I think anyone down under would choose.

Plus, after a crashed global economy, Australia couldn't expect to escape economically unscathed even if she somehow miraculously avoided anything bad happening to her from choosing the wrong (Chinese) side.

Any Sino-American war would be very bad for the whole world, and especially catastrophic for all Pacific Rim nations.

[RN7]

Has anybody forgoten that the Chinese military is actually fairly crap. In numbers its army is the largest in the world, its navy is the second largest in the world, and its air force is the third largest in the world, but they haven't got the logistical capability to deploy their army overseas in significant numbers, and the air and naval equipment is not better than any of their neighbours, in facts the Japanese and South Korean air force and navy are more advanced.

Despite what you read about China developing secret stealth fighters and super aircraft carriers, the best they have has either been bought or built under license from Russia, or is simply knocked off Russian and other foreign technology produced semi-legally in China. If the Chinese navy and air force went head to head with the US Navy and USAF it would be hammered, end of story.

[ShadoWarrior]

The PLA was crap back in the 50s, too, and they still kicked our asses in Korea. Numbers do matter. Even if each individual plane, tank, and ship is a decade or more less advanced than its opponents, enough of them will cause a world of hurt. Sure, we'll get a 6 to 1 or 10 to 1 kill ratio in the air, somewhat less than that at sea or on land. But when the enemy has a 10 or 20 to 1 advantage in numbers...

And it doesn't matter where they get their stuff from. So what if they don't design the stuff themselves, but get it from the Russians (and steal it from everyone else)? The Argentinians were using bought planes and missiles when they sank British ships in the Falklands. America's superior technology, training, and doctrine can only go so far to counterbalance enemy numbers. And that's under ideal conditions, which also assumes that no one on the US side makes a major blunder.

China isn't Iraq. Their units won't just roll over and surrender when they run into the big tough Americans with their fancy toys. And the Chinese integrated air defense system is second only to that of Russia's. The US got a very painful taste of it back during Vietnam, and they've kept up with tech improvements ever since. The Chinese aren't stupid. They know what the US has, and will be prepared to deal with it.

US units would be at the end of a very long logistical tether. China would be fighting in their front yard. It's so close that logistics isn't really an issue for the invaders.

As Webstral said, the main calculation is whether the Chinese are willing to take the economic hit. That they haven't been willing to, or risk a confrontation with the nuclear-armed US, is all that keeps Taiwan free. Even so, Taiwan has been fairly well Finlandized.

[RN7]

The rise of China is probably the most significant event of the 21st Century.

The figures and statistics coming out of China are staggering. Its economy is the second largest in the world by any measure, and is growing fast enough that it may overtake America within a decade. It is already the worlds largest exporter, it overtook America as the worlds largest manufacturer in 2010, and the industrial statistics are mind bogling.

It produces more steel than the rest of the world combined, it is the worlds largest ship builder, it produces more vehicles than North America, Japan and the whole of Europe, and it overtook America as the largest car market in the world. The combined value and trading of Chinese stock markets are already the biggest in the world outside of the massive stock trading of New York City. Chinese seaports dominate the annual listings of the worlds busiest ports, and the size of its air cargo and passenger transport statistics is growing so rapidly that it is beginning to rival America's. Only America produces and consumes more electricity, and only America consumes more oil, and China may even overtake America in electricity and oil consumption by the end of the decade.

Remarkably this has been achieved in a communist country where you can only vote for one political party, were human rights, work practices and laws and ideals that we take for granted are absent, and were people are only allowed to have one child throughout most of the country.

Why has this happened? I would say because the rest of the world, the Western and developed world in particular, has turned a blind eye to what China does in its own country, and Western and Japanese companies have heavily invested in the Chinese economy to produce manufactured good for export to the developed world, attracted by the low cost of Chinese labour and almost non-existant work practices and labour laws, and the articially low value of the Chinese Yuan. All of this has allowed China and the Chinese elites to build up massive cash reserves and buy some of the debt of other countries to stimulate the development of China's economy and preserve the status quo.

Will anyone try and encourage democracy in China and help the lot of the Chinese people. Probably not because it will encourage the Chinese people to want more rights, which in turn will lead to higher pay, better work practices, new laws, the exposure of corruption and more openess and accountability which the Chinese government would be hostile too. Ultimately it could lead a similar situation to the Soviet Union in the early 1990's. Large parts of China are hostile to Peking and even the dominant Han Chinese ethnic group, Tibet and the Uyghur's are already in open rebellion against Chinese domination. All this would be bad for business as it wouldn't be cheap to build things in China anymore, and all the new shiny factories would have to close and move somehere else, which would leave China royally screwed.

So for the forseable future we will see the continual emergence of China. Maybe not as rapidly as the we have seen in the last decade and this growth is not sustainable for ever. However China will turn to its military and science to increase its international power and prestige. Technologicaly and logistically it can't match America, but its power will steadily grow and its main aim will be to challenge American hegemony in the Pacific and become powerful enough to deter American forces.

For the Asia-Pacific region it could be a traumatic experience. They will all be happy to make as much money as they can from the emergent Chinese super-power. The Russians will be happy to make as much money as they can from China, selling them raw materials, arms, military and space technology, and will be happy to align themselves with China as long as they don't increase their nuclear capability to much. However the Japanese, South Koreans and Taiwanese among others will move closer into America's defence umbrella, as China will become to powerful for them to confront on their own. India may also allign itself closer with America as it will be China's largest rival in Asia, and Australia might find itself in an akward position due to its huge commodity exports to China and its close relations with America.

What will this mean for America. It might loose its number one position as the worlds largest economy to China in the not so distant future. But America will remain a richer country, as its far better developed than and its wealth is far more evenly distributed. Its economy is also inherently more stable and also more infuental, and is far less dependant on the outside world. Europe, Japan and the developed world will remain its main competitors in high-tech industries, although others including China will increasingly emerge. America will remain the preminant military power. Its logistical capabilities and global supply and intel network is far superior to any other country, and its military-industrial complex and level of technology may be to great for anyone else to ever fully match.

However I could be wrong. The rise in value of the Yuan, inflation, changing market forces, unpopularity of China's government in the developed world forcing multinationals to relocate their factories, the growth of democracy, a Far Eastern Arms race and an invasion of Taiwan could rapidly throw a spanner into China.

[95th Rifleman]

That's actually a false choice. In any Sino-American war there would be an economic blockade of China. If Australia tried to sit it out as a 'neutral', and continue to supply war-critical materials to China, Australia would be subjected to the effects of the blockade. In effect, Australia would become at war with the US. That's not a situation that I think anyone down under would choose.

Plus, after a crashed global economy, Australia couldn't expect to escape economically unscathed even if she somehow miraculously avoided anything bad happening to her from choosing the wrong (Chinese) side.

Any Sino-American war would be very bad for the whole world, and especially catastrophic for all Pacific Rim nations.

How is China the "wrong" side exactly?

There are allot of assumptions in play here, the biggest (and oldest) is that America are the good guys and people should always take their side.

America is on the way out, her economy is shot and she is being bled white by stupid conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. China is an up and coming power that is playing the empire game the same way the British used to, they are buying their empire. Look at their interests in Africa, they are following the classic british model for economic domination.

If things go hot it would be better for nations in the pacific area to either openly side with China or to quietly side with them.

[RN7]

How is China the "wrong" side exactly?

There are allot of assumptions in play here, the biggest (and oldest) is that America are the good guys and people should always take their side.

America is on the way out, her economy is shot and she is being bled white by stupid conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. China is an up and coming power that is playing the empire game the same way the British used to, they are buying their empire. Look at their interests in Africa, they are following the classic british model for economic domination.

If things go hot it would be better for nations in the pacific area to either openly side with China or to quietly side with them.

Well I wouldn't quite agree with all that. America has been involved in bigger overseas wars since 1945; Korea and Vietnam, and also had to contend with a far more militarly and technologically powerful competitor than China; the Soviet Union. America's economy is not doing so great at the moment, but neither is anyone else in the developed world with the exception of Australia which is making a lot of money selling commodities to China.

Chinese military power to all intensive purposes is absent outside of the Far East, whereas America's is global. China's involvement in Africa or anywhere else is all about giving money to the local regimes and securing resources for export to China. Third World governements obviously prefer Chinese money as there are no strings attached, such as human rights and democratic reform linked with development aid.

China produces a huge amount of consumables, but much of what is exported is produced by non-Chinese corporations who located their factories to China to take advantage of China's low coast labour, non-existant labour laws and the artifically low value of the Yuan for export. In most high technology industries; pharmaceuticals, aircraft and spacecraft, medical, precision and optical instruments, communication equipment, high end weaponry, business and computing machinery, indigenous Chinese companies are either absent in these industries or not considered major competitors to the main focal areas of these technologies; North America, Europe and Japan. In medium technology industries; electrical machinery, motor vehicles, ship building, transport equipment, chemicals and chemical products, metalurgy, machinery and equipment, most of what China produces goes into the Chinese market or produced for mass export to developed countries by either foreign owned companies or by Chinese companies who produce it for foreign owned companies.

[ShadoWarrior]

There are allot of assumptions in play here, the biggest (and oldest) is that America are the good guys and people should always take their side.

Ask China's neighbors who'd they prefer to be friends with. Don't forget that China has fought wars with almost every neighboring country in the past 50 years.

China is an up and coming power that is playing the empire game the same way the British used to, they are buying their empire. Look at their interests in Africa, they are following the classic british model for economic domination.

Yes, that turned out very well for the British in the end, didn't it? The Brits are still resented like hell all over Africa.

If things go hot it would be better for nations in the pacific area to either openly side with China or to quietly side with them.

That's rather short-sighted thinking. Of course, thinking short-sided is what gets people (and countries) into trouble in the first place. BTW, what you suggest is what most European and many other countries around the world did with regards to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. That turned out well, didn't it?

[95th Rifleman]

Yes, that turned out very well for the British in the end, didn't it? The Brits are still resented like hell all over Africa.

Yeah, we don't have any commonwealth of nations and African nations don't contribute to the British army........

Be careful with generalisations there mate. The Empire declined after fighting two world wars but for the most part it was an economic rather than military empire which is why we are still on good terms with most of our old colonies and teritories. 53 seperate nations form the British commonwelath, 19 of them are African.

I'd also be careful about throwing around Hitler comparisons. The only nations in the past few decades to invade another soverieghn nation are America (Iraq and Afghanistan) and Russia (Georgia).

[95th Rifleman]

Well I wouldn't quite agree with all that. America has been involved in bigger overseas wars since 1945; Korea and Vietnam, and also had to contend with a far more militarly and technologically powerful competitor than China; the Soviet Union.

To be fair, America and Russia where never actualy tested against each other. They both fought the other's export weapons and equipment in other conflicts but the US and Russia never went head to head and tested their full strength, thankfully.

[Webstral]

It would put my country in a truly awful position too - we'd have to choose between losing our economic prosperity (China's demand for raw materials is the only thing sparing Australia from the global economic downturn that's affecting every other western economy) or turning our backs on the strongest and closest military ally we've ever had.

For better or for worse, if our imagined PRC invasion of Taiwan occurs within the next five years, Australia will find herself obliged to side with the US. Once the economic blockade descends on China, the Chinese demand for raw materials will dry up very quickly. Once the USN puts its blackade of China's ports in place, Australia's raw materials will have trouble moving into the country anyway. Even if some enterprising types arrange to have goods for China offloaded in Southeast Asia or Vladivostok, B-2s dropping precision-guided munitions will keep China's rail links with the outside world from functioning as intended. Sorry, my friend. If it comes to a shooting war between the US and the PRC in the near future, there is no money to be made siding with China. We'll talk again in ten years and see where things stand, though.

The good news is that Beijing seems to understand this fact. The analogy comparing modern China to rising Britain is an interesting one. Why take by conquest what you can buy and have other governments' troops safeguard for you? It seems to me that China is doing a very good job of keeping her saber-rattling much quieter than her wallet-based transactions.

Webstral

[95th Rifleman]

The British proved that an empire based on trade and economic factors is better and more effective than one based on military conquest. When you study the history of China you see they adopted a very similar approach during their own history so it's not surprising they are doing the same today.

[ShadoWarrior]

Be careful with generalisations there mate. The Empire declined after fighting two world wars but for the most part it was an economic rather than military empire which is why we are still on good terms with most of our old colonies and teritories. 53 seperate nations form the British commonwelath, 19 of them are African.

I've been to Africa. I'm speaking from experience.

I'd also be careful about throwing around Hitler comparisons. The only nations in the past few decades to invade another soverieghn nation are America (Iraq and Afghanistan) and Russia (Georgia).

Iraq vs. Kuwait. Iraq vs. Iran. Soviet Union vs. Afghanistan. Israel vs. Lebanon (repeatedly). There are others in the 80s and 90s. And a great many others if I go back another decade or two to the 60s and 70s.

It wasn't a comparison against Hitler. You completely (and I think deliberately) missed the point. Which was about appeasement. Something that America has never done (except, arguably, with the Chicoms, whom the US kowtows much too much). Nor, to my knowledge, has Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or Canada ever been an appeaser of dictatorial regimes. The same cannot be said of pretty much every other European, South American, African, and Asian nation. If being reminded of some of the less virtuous things nations other than the US have done, it's only fair considering how quick some folks seem to be about pointing out America's many flaws (which I won't dispute, since we do have them). Some nations, which exact ones I'll respectfully decline to point out, have a very long history of appeasement.

[95th Rifleman]

I've been to Africa. I'm speaking from experience.


Iraq vs. Kuwait. Iraq vs. Iran. Soviet Union vs. Afghanistan. Israel vs. Lebanon (repeatedly). There are others in the 80s and 90s. And a great many others if I go back another decade or two to the 60s and 70s.

It wasn't a comparison against Hitler. You completely (and I think deliberately) missed the point. Which was about appeasement. Something that America has never done (except, arguably, with the Chicoms, whom the US kowtows much too much). Nor, to my knowledge, has Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or Canada ever been an appeaser of dictatorial regimes. The same cannot be said of pretty much every other European, South American, African, and Asian nation. If being reminded of some of the less virtuous things nations other than the US have done, it's only fair considering how quick some folks seem to be about pointing out America's many flaws (which I won't dispute, since we do have them). Some nations, which exact ones I'll respectfully decline to point out, have a very long history of appeasement.

Not arguing the appeasemnt point, folks should of listened to Churchill while they where busy giving Hitler poland.

I'm always amused when people make broad generalisations and say "i've been there" I'm assuming you've visited every African country and spoken to a broad demographic? Or maybe I should visit Somalia and then base all of Africa's view of the US based on how folks view them there?

America doesn't get into appeasement? So we won't mention how America has appeased Israel for the last few decades and allowed them to do what they want to Palestinian civilians going as far as to use their security council veto to back their constant violation of Un reslutions? We won't mention how America ignored Saddam when he was happily killing Kurds, as long as he was America's puppy and providing a pawn to match soviet-backed Iran.

America is as guilty of appasement as any other European nation mate, it's hypocritical to claim that they havn't engaged in that little hobby.

[ShadoWarrior]

I'm always amused when people make broad generalisations and say "i've been there" I'm assuming you've visited every African country and spoken to a broad demographic? Or maybe I should visit Somalia and then base all of Africa's view of the US based on how folks view them there?

Somalia is one of the countries I haven't been to. I have, however, been to most of Britain's former African colonies. In the 80s. The seething resentment amongst the locals was quite noticeable whenever there were any Brit ex-pats in the vicinity. And only the Brits. My Canadian, Turkish, and (oddly enough) German compatriots weren't given the same evil eye.

America doesn't get into appeasement? So we won't mention how America has appeased Israel for the last few decades and allowed them to do what they want to Palestinian civilians going as far as to use their security council veto to back their constant violation of Un reslutions?

America doesn't appease Israel. It uses Israel as a proxy. There's a huge difference. Doesn't make the behavior any more acceptable. But it's a different sort of relationship than that of appeasement, and the motives are very much different. China uses the DPRK as a proxy, which in turn exports arms to many nations in economic or military conflict with the US. Saudi Arabia uses other Gulf states as proxies. Iran uses Syria as a proxy, which in turn uses Lebanon and various terrorist groups. Cuba uses Venezuela. And those are just the ones off the top of my head. Israel appeases the US. Sometimes. (Other times they're perfectly willing to do whatever the hell they want, and damn the consequences.) Canada, on occasion, appeases the US. As does, to a lesser extent, the UK and Australia. Vietnam appeases China (having no desire to fight another war with China like the one they fought in 1975). A whole slew of nations appease Russia, for fear of Russia waging economic or military war against them.

Most of the world appeases the US to some extent. The big difference between how and why nations appease the US versus how/why they do so to other nations is that the US is, as has been mentioned by others here more than once, the world's economic and military leader. As such, nations often want something from the US, such as favorable economic deals, or military support or whatever. The US has not invaded anyone because they didn't kiss our ass (except Panama). Those that appease Russia and China do so out of fear, not out of a desire for a reward. It's a subtle, but important difference.

We won't mention how America ignored Saddam when he was happily killing Kurds, as long as he was America's puppy and providing a pawn to match soviet-backed Iran.

Yes, let's not get into that. Not one of our finer moments. Bastard Bush family and their politics.

America is as guilty of appasement as any other European nation mate, it's hypocritical to claim that they havn't engaged in that little hobby.

I'm not sure that you understand the definition of appeasement. It's not as broad a concept as you seem to think it is.

[Webstral]

I'm not sure that you understand the definition of appeasement. It's not as broad a concept as you seem to think it is.

Appeasement is one of those terms which has degenerated into a form of slander in modern terminology, thanks to Mr. Chamberlain. In many cases, the term "appeasement" is used as an opposite to "confronting". I agree that the relationship with Israel is more complex than appeasement. This is not to say that the US-Israeli relationship doesn't have its infuriating elements. However, no good analysis can misapply important terms.

Webstral