China Vs the U.S

The right place to muse about sino-american conflict, and the exciting prospect of millions of deaths!

Or if you dont like war then about economics too...

edited 13th Aug '11 6:59:21 PM by Baff

It would be a fairly one sided conflict in favor of the US. This includes the possibility of nuclear warfare.

Serious flamebait here.

You ninjaed me, I was just about to post this ....

Rats.

As of now, the US would win. However, it would be far from a quick war just due to the sheer size of the nations involved... It would be a long, bloody slugfest. Short by war of attrition standards, but likely to last several years regardless.

Only if people make it so.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:02:32 PM by Lessinath

I'd say we the U.S.A should get more motivated to compete against China.

I mean part of the cold war America was competing against the Soviet Union in everything so now China is the next big thing I think we should get competive in making things "Made in the USA".

I know China is more of a faux communist government but it is still totaltarian in practice.So,maybe we should start competing against them in manufacturing.

Flame bait? This is a like a giant flame hole covered with leaves with a treasure, 72 virgins and your childhood dog pet the center of the trap.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:06:27 PM by Baff

As I have stated elsewhere, the United States and China simply cannot go to war in this current climate. Leadership on both sides would have to be both stupid and batshit insane. The economic effects alone would make the Great Depression look like a tea party.

Besides, no side has a casus belli.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:09:59 PM by Pentadragon

It can also be about who is going to have more influence. Will China gain enough economic power to challenge the U.S leadership role in world affairs?

Well speaking of the Tea Party...

If the U.S. focused all of their attention on China. The U.S. would win out eventually. It would not be pretty though.

x4 Being mutual biggest trading partners has not stopped nations from going to war in the past.

^^^^^ The other thread debunked the trade as war prevention argument. There's no historical evidence in favor of that. Some of the largest fronts of the Second World War (like the Pacific theatre) had their belligerents be really strong trading partners prior to conflict breaking out.

China and the US can in fact go to war with each other. Trade won't stop them if that route comes to pass.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:11:26 PM by MajorTom

This is unfortunate, but true.

I don't think we have any Chinese troper here that comes anywhere near close to an opposite of Tom, so the flame war would be quite one-sided.

In the hypothetical war of the US hitting China (since the reverse is basically impossible), the US would have to ship tons and tons of troops and supplies to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. They'd also have to move their naval assets and air assets into the area. It's hard to say how long that will take but during this time, China can spend it shoring up their defences, rallying their nationalist propaganda and get conscription ready.

US will likely make the first strike, invade across several areas; Hong Kong, the coastal provinces. I'm not sure if China can hold them or not. Let's say that China doesn't and is forced into retreat.

Now the US is stuck in the same quagmire the Imperial Japanese were in, except worse, because you have to ship supplies across the Pacific. Daily losses for US forces would be tremendous. Just think that the Imperial Japanese with machineguns fighting China, in the middle of its civil war, who had sabres versus their guns, suffered over 1 million military losses in eight years of war. China now has trained soldiers, no domestic conflict and a nationalist population. Their technology is behind but it's behind in a way that's actually comparable, versus when the Chinese fought the Japanese with like "behind a whole age" technology.

The Korean War showed that Chinese troops were actually highly effective and well trained. Is it the same now as before? Hard to say. American troops haven't fought in against a real power in a while as well.

But after that then what? How long can the US maintain millions of soldiers half way across the world? It's not a sustainable offensive. If the Americans win the coast, the Chinese still have the central cities. You can't just camp the coast, the insurgency will bleed you to death. You can't rush into the centre, you'll get surrounded and destroyed like the Japanese troops did.

You can talk about winning a nuclear war, but if they level every single city over the population of a million in America, winning sounds kinda hollow. Only takes one nuke to get through per city to level it and that'll cause hundreds of thousands if not millions of casualties per city. Yay we win, only 50 million Americans died. Woo!

Actually, it takes a lot more than one nuke to level a city... because the really large city busters are not practical to deploy on ICB Ms.

I never thought I'd say this but thank goodness for nuclear deterrent.

Besides, I can't see a reason WHY either side would want to go to war with the other, barring some insane person gaining power.

^^^ The Japanese had World War One technology in the Second Sino Japanese War. They had very limited sustained fire capabilities and limited armor/artillery capabilities.

We on the other hand have no such issue. The Chinese wouldn't be relying on insurgency. The Chinese aren't known for IED's and sniper attacks. They're more likely to throw a conscripted peasant rabble at us to just be slaughtered than dare try stuff like that. Besides, they have organized military presence and their populace is wholly disarmed. They couldn't foment an insurgency while still trying to keep their regular troops fed, fueled and supplied with weapons.

The Japanese also made plenty of tactical mistakes we aren't prone to.

^ What nuclear deterrent? China has maybe 500 warheads in total and very few of them have the range to reach US cities. (Meaning they will be easy pickings for US Missile Defense.) The remaining are in insufficient quantity to sustain a nuclear exchange with the US. So they blow everything they got at us, wipe out our invasion force and its ships and planes. All that results in is us directing Strategic Command to systematically glass all of China with every nuke we got. (We got over 5000 warheads on hand.)

edited 13th Aug '11 7:22:04 PM by MajorTom

Its dangerous to assume how an army would fight, and overconfident to say we wouldn't make mistakes.

Plus they would be fighting to defend their land, that counts for alot.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:21:05 PM by Thorn14

Like being lured into traps because we're more careful about ensuring our flanks are covered? :P

edited 13th Aug '11 7:21:28 PM by Lessinath

At the moment, the leadership of the Communist Party wants a 'Peaceful Rise'. China does not want her rise to power to be punctuated with conflict and has actively avoided unnecessary international confrontation. Starting a war with the United States would be less of a speed bump and more like a large mountain range.

If I remember correctly, you stated that the idea was debunked and the thread moved on. My apologies if I am wrong, but I do not think the issue was settled.

The thing about World War II is that in most cases the leadership on the side of the Axis was stupid (Italy), insane (Japan), or both (Germany). Although I am not fond of the Communist Party, they are at least reasonable enough right now to realize the devastation that would be unleashed in any possible Sino-American conflict. It would essentially be throwing decades of progress in the garbage.

Again, I am talking about the current world. Both the US and China could easily lose their minds in a few decades, but for now the status quo remains. Wars typically have some sort of goal or reasoning behind it. There is none here. Absolutely nothing.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:27:45 PM by Pentadragon

Also, the Japanese and US WERE trading partners until Roosevelt ended that in 1940. Also, the worlds economy was far less globalized at that time, and there were far fewer methods of communication between the actual people of a country. You can't just say "happened in WW 2, therefore it can happen again", as these are entirely different eras, as strange to each other as the Medieval ages were to the Victorian era.

As for my opinion on a hypothetical war: The US would never actually land troops on the mainland. It'd be stupid and pointless. We'd bomb them into submission in no time, considering that they have no navy to speak of and a weak air force as far as we know. The biggist issue would be their cyber warfare, and the damage that could cause on the homefront.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:25:30 PM by YoungMachete

^ And yet a commonality emerges. Compared to the Victorian Era, the Second World War was The Singularity yet they still fought even if they were trading partners in both eras. Same argument applies to Medieval vs Victorian Eras.

There's no reason to suggest trade will stop the US and China from going to war if the two decide to head that route.

There's still no logical decision for the U.S. and China to go to war.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:31:06 PM by Ekuran

I disagree. Any war between the US and China would absolutley collapse our economy and theirs. Globalization has occured in an unprecedented degree in the last 50 years. China is our single biggest trading partner, far larger than the US-Japanese relationship pre-WW 2, which was easily ended. Quite simply, a war between the US and China would lose money, and a lot of it, which is why it will never happen.

edited 13th Aug '11 7:32:05 PM by YoungMachete

Tom: I don't think the Chinese will rely on "peasant rabble" From the few people who have done joint training and friendly competition with the Chinese in the past and you know the current experts they have aimed for body of actual trained soldiers instead of a mass of willing cannon fodder. I believe they do have some units they are very willing to throw at us to distract us and draw fire but those units are not going to be typical cannon fodder.