China A China-Free Supply Chain

[LordsFire]

Say hello to World War 3.

I'm not sure how you would expect a regional collapse to lead to WW3. I can certainly see how things get very, very ugly in China and with its immediate neighbors, but I don't see how that spirals out into a worldwide war.

 

[Rocinante]

I'm not sure how you would expect a regional collapse to lead to WW3. I can certainly see how things get very, very ugly in China and with its immediate neighbors, but I don't see how that spirals out into a worldwide war.

China is a massive power.

Other powers move in to take control when a power vacuum exists.

Surrounding states will be hurting for resources that they can get by taking some of this region for themselves.

China, while having many problems, is a stabilizing force because they have power, money and a stable position.

Topple the game board and it's probably a bloodbath over there.

Foreign relations as we know them would be over. Entire country's allies and interests shift over night.

 

[LordsFire]

China is a massive power.

Other powers move in to take control when a power vacuum exists.

Surrounding states will be hurting for resources that they can get by taking some of this region for themselves.

China, while having many problems, is a stabilizing force because they have power, money and a stable position.

Topple the game board and it's probably a bloodbath over there.

Foreign relations as we know them would be over. Entire country's allies and interests shift over night.

First off, I don't believe China is remotely a 'stabilizing' influence. It's too much of a dirty dealer and hostile to all its neighbors for that.

Second off, you haven't actually answered the question of how this spirals out into a world-wide problem, rather than a regional one.

 

[Rocinante]

First off, I don't believe China is remotely a 'stabilizing' influence. It's too much of a dirty dealer and hostile to all its neighbors for that.

Second off, you haven't actually answered the question of how this spirals out into a world-wide problem, rather than a regional one.

Most of the world has china as a primary source of many goods.

That's what sparked this thread after all.

With that gone, the whole world is going to destabilize. Many countries will be starving. Others won't be able to maintain their industries.

And countries with competing interests will step in to stabilize the region and get the goods flowing again.

They're Absolutely a stabilizing influence. No one in that area is really fucking around with each other or with them..yeah they're assholes, yeah they're dirty dealers, and yes they can be hostile. They're still keeping that region stable. Take them out of the picture and the area will descend into chaos.

We have seen what happens when we topple regional powers. We toppled Saddam in Iraq, and it lead to ISIS taking over, and a civil war.

We fucked around in syria. Assad was/is a terrible leader, but look what happened when he was knocked down a peg. All out civil war with multiple factions.

Evil dictators who act aggressively may not be great to have around, but they CAN provide stability. This is what china is doing. Take them out of the picture and it's utter chaos.

They're such a big economy that taking them out of the picture effects WAY more than just that region. This will have worldwide ripples. Global recessions.

 

[LordsFire]

Most of the world has china as a primary source of many goods.

That's what sparked this thread after all.

With that gone, the whole world is going to destabilize. Many countries will be starving. Others won't be able to maintain their industries.

And countries with competing interests will step in to stabilize the region and get the goods flowing again.

They're Absolutely a stabilizing influence. No one in that area is really fucking around with each other or with them..yeah they're assholes, yeah they're dirty dealers, and yes they can be hostile. They're still keeping that region stable. Take them out of the picture and the area will descend into chaos.

We have seen what happens when we topple regional powers. We toppled Saddam in Iraq, and it lead to ISIS taking over, and a civil war.

We fucked around in syria. Assad was/is a terrible leader, but look what happened when he was knocked down a peg. All out civil war with multiple factions.

Evil dictators who act aggressively may not be great to have around, but they CAN provide stability. This is what china is doing. Take them out of the picture and it's utter chaos.

They're such a big economy that taking them out of the picture effects WAY more than just that region. This will have worldwide ripples. Global recessions.

1. Yes, there would be worldwide economic consequences, but China is very replaceable in supply chains. Economic impact does not equate to a world war, just as it did not in 2009, or the 70's, or the 1929. It can contribute, but it is not a causation in and of itself.
2. China is a net importer in regards to foodstuffs, not an exporter. IIRC, by a pretty large margin as well. If food were going to be drastically shorted to other nations, I could see that causing more serious stability problems, but food exports isn't the problem.
3. Directly equating the results of a strongman, or a number of strongmen, falling in the Islamic middle-east, to what would happen in the far east is foolish. Islam is the most terrorism-prone ideology in the world, and Arab culture is a feuding, warring culture. East Asian cultures are substantially different, and while no human culture is completely averse to war or holding grudges, it is nowhere near so entrenched in Chinese cultural or communist ideological roots. You may still see a hot mess, but it is by no means guaranteed to be anywhere near as bad, volatile, or long-lasting as what is happening in the Middle East.
4. Your comparison to conflict in the Middle East actually hurts your position of things escalating to a world war, not helps it. The conflicts in the ME over the last 3 decades have not escalated to worldwide affairs, and show no signs of doing so any time soon.

 

[Captain X]

Be nice if we could somehow excise the communist element in China without it leading to collapse.

 

[Zachowon]

None of you seem to realize how it will actually go.

 

[LordsFire]

None of you seem to realize how it will actually go.

You haven't done a very good job of arguing your position for how you think it would go. If you want to persuade people, work on your skills at debate and data presentation.

Please, I'm honestly interested in why you think the way you do, but you really are not good at communicating such things.

 

[Zachowon]

You haven't done a very good job of arguing your position for how you think it would go. If you want to persuade people, work on your skills at debate and data presentation.

Please, I'm honestly interested in why you think the way you do, but you really are not good at communicating such things.

My issue, I forgot my argument right now, and two, some of my info I cant share?

 

[LordsFire]

My issue, I forgot my argument right now, and two, some of my info I cant share?

If you can't make your argument with the info you can share, learn to find other sources. Use publicly available data to paint a picture, and explain why you see it that way.

You'll probably still run into some limits that frustrate you, but it'd be better than what you're doing now. Look at my post on the previous page about the Chinese Navy if you want some idea of what that looks like.

 

[Zachowon]

If you can't make your argument with the info you can share, learn to find other sources. Use publicly available data to paint a picture, and explain why you see it that way.

You'll probably still run into some limits that frustrate you, but it'd be better than what you're doing now. Look at my post on the previous page about the Chinese Navy if you want some idea of what that looks like.

I will give it a chance in a little.

 

[Abhorsen]

My issue, I forgot my argument right now, and two, some of my info I cant share?

If you can't share info, you shouldn't be alluding to it either.

 

[Zachowon]

If you can't share info, you shouldn't be alluding to it either.

I dont elude to that info.
All my info is stuff gathered through unclassified and open source information

 

[Rocinante]

I dont elude to that info.
All my info is stuff gathered through unclassified and open source information

Basically, if you can't say it, stfu.

"I can't say it" is eluding to it, and no one is persuaded by the "well I can't say anything," argument.

So you say what you can and you leave it at that. You don't wave that you have classified info around. That doesn't prove anything, and it's a shitty way to debate.

 

[King Arts]

Would rather have that happen then a war.

I mean if that happens there is a good chance that there would be a war. I remember Putin saying something like if Russia can't exist, then he sees no reason to allow the world to. Now I know Putin is Russian and not Chinese, but many nations have plans where they take the world down to hell with them if they end up destroyed, hell look at Israel and the Samson option. If China's three gorges dam is destroyed China would launch all it's nukes at whoever they think caused it. The good news is they only have 500 nukes not enough to cause human extinction, but they might decide to take down the world leader aka America out of jealousy of not getting to be number 1.

Worth it. Even a hot nuclear war is better than communists winning.

I actually am surprised I agree. Atheistic communism that seeks to spread like a virus is one of the worst things I can imagine. Though I have heard that China is not actually communist and they are nationalists simply paying lip service to Mao, in that case while it wouldn't be great for east asia it would simply be the Chinese becoming hegemons and having vassal states like they did in the Imperial era. It wouldn't be ideal but empires rise and empires fall. So America fading from dominance would not be that bad, I don't see too much reason to care about things that are outside of Europe or the Americas. I mean yes it's a shame that we aren't supreme hegemon, but as long as the other great powers don't try and influence our internal workings of our nation it's not a big loss. Seriously we are basically poisoned by what the Soviets did to us by their plants in the education field, because of them sjw were created in colleges and kept spreading. That's far more deadly than foreign political influence loss.

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If the dam breaks I think that might be the end of the chi coms.

They built it, put their political capital into it encouraged the growth of cities in the way of a potential break and now it looks like the dam has issues. Its something they own utterly. If they collapse then my bet is we get another warlord period which will not be fun for china and after thats done you get a very traditionalist confucion regieme.

A restoration of a Chinese Emperor under confucion principles would be cool. It is a shame that in the 1900's a tradition that's over 2000 years ended. Even if monarchy is outdated they could have maintained more culture and got more tourism by having a constitutional monarchy like Britain does.

 

[strunkenwhite]

My issue, I forgot my argument right now, and two, some of my info I cant share?

Personally speaking, I'd much rather have an argument that was well-sourced in some areas, and was marked with "reasons" in others, than one that doesn't exist and you're just here going "y'all're wrong." But please make sure to have a good hard think about whether posting your conclusion and claiming that it's based on info you can't tell us is itself telling us too much.

I actually am surprised I agree.

I suspect that communism would be well-represented among the many totalitarian governments with fig-leaf ideologies after a hot nuclear war.

 

[Zachowon]

Personally speaking, I'd much rather have an argument that was well-sourced in some areas, and was marked with "reasons" in others, than one that doesn't exist and you're just here going "y'all're wrong." But please make sure to have a good hard think about whether posting your conclusion and claiming that it's based on info you can't tell us is itself telling us too much.

I suspect that communism would be well-represented among the many totalitarian governments with fig-leaf ideologies after a hot nuclear war.

My arguments are not based on info i cant tell. It is based off of open source stuff, and I stop because there is more info about said things I cant tell about. I am not going "My argument is based off something I cant say" and skirt the line.

 

[King Arts]

Guys maybe it would be best to drop that specific line of dialogue. I'm not sure one what security clearance anyone has. But it's best to not discuss it, we don't want anyone to face legal penalties because they were stupid and carelessly posted something on the internet that was classified.

 

[Rocinante]

My arguments are not based on info i cant tell. It is based off of open source stuff, and I stop because there is more info about said things I cant tell about. I am not going "My argument is based off something I cant say" and skirt the line.

You ARE though.

Saying "there's stuff I can't say too," is just shitty.

In the future leave that out. Make your arguments with what you have and don't even mention that there's more.

For starters, it's really skirting the line. It's also a shitty way to debate and I guarantee no one likes that being dangled in front of them.

Just cut it out.

 

[Sir 1000]

See, the thing is, the only reason China's ability to get what it needs through trade is threatened, is because of their own damn actions.

If they would just accept playing by the same rules as everybody else, and actually deal in good faith, they wouldn't have the problems that they do right now. Other nations are trying to stop trade dependency on China, because China has proven to be an unreliable trading partner.

Beyond that, China is not a 'true blue water navy.' They do have a reasonable number of ships that are capable of proper blue-water operations, enough to be a threat to small nations, but when you actually take a look at their fleet composition...



Their navy is ~359 ships, of which 195 are either unarmed, or tiny and incapable of projecting power beyond their immediate area. Another 79 are submarines, among which only the 12 ballistic missile subs have shore-attack capability, though the 6 type-93 attack submarines might have some secondary anti-ground capability

Beyond that, what blue-navy assets capable of supporting an invasion of hostile territory, they have:

2 Aircraft Carriers, both about 70k tons, one a refurbished Russian, the other native built. They've never seen or supported combat, and if they perform on a par with a US Carrier of that size, would be a serious threat to small and mid-sized nations, but we don't know how that would actually pan out.

8 Amphibious transports at 25,000 tons each. That's enough to give Taiwan a bitch of a time, especially with all the short-range landing craft the Chinese have, but it's not enough to launch and supply invasion of the Phillipines, much less Japan, India, or other relevant threats.

Purportedly they have 1 Type-55 Stealth Destroyer in service, 5000 nautical mile range, but I'll buy that when it's actually seen to perform. They're building a bunch more, at least according to Wikipedia.

The Type-52D Guided Missile Destroyer has 14 hulls in service, weighing in at 7500 tons, but I couldn't find its service range. There's another 6 7000 ton Type-52Cs, and as the prior model has a listed range of 4800 nautical miles, we'll treat the D as a proper blue-water navy asset as well.

They also have 4 Russian Sovremenny missile destroyers, weighing in at 6600 tons, but only a little under 4k nm range, which is about 1k nm too short to get them to Honolulu, and 2.5k nm too short range to get them to the Arabian Gulf, so at that point, they don't really count anymore.

They have 24 Type 54A frigates, and 2 Type-54 Frigates, massing 4200 and 3900 tons respectively, all of which have a respectable ~8k nautical mile range. Not bad, though they are anti-air and sub support ships, not suitable for naval assaults. To be fair; that's okay, they're not supposed to be.


So, altogether, that gives us 54 actual Blue-water Navy vessels, out of ~360 ships. That's definitely enough to make any smaller nation sit up and notice, but it is not enough to let them effectively project naval power against any nation they'd want to pick on, aside from Taiwan, which they would be attacking for political reasons, not resource-based reasons.


The thing about the idea of going to war for resources, is that China has no ability to actually gain resources through prosecuting a war.

Two Carrier Task Forces from the USN could sink their entire blue-water navy, and any number of nations have the land-based air, missile, and artillery assets necessary to sink those 54 ships in part or in whole.

Most importantly, the Chinese do not have any experience waging war on the high seas. They have no institutional experience, their doctrine and training is not tested, and on top of all that, the Chinese military is notorious for spending more training time and money ensuring loyalty to the communist party, than actual competence at war-fighting.

China could pick a fight, but the instant that any three non-US nations of real size and military capability (Vietnam, Japan, and India being the most relevant) decide to have a go at them together, China loses. If the US Navy gets involved, much less the rest of the US military, China loses.

If everybody with an ax to grind against them teams up, China doesn't just lose, China ceases to exist as an independent nation.

Now, to be clear, if it's actually fighting a defensive war, or manages to solo Taiwan with no nation in the world moving to help the Taiwanese, their navy will do a very good job of beating the tar out of anyone (aside from the US) that tries to approach China's coast. Even the US Navy would have to very carefully work to wear down China's defensive capabilities bit by bit, or take horrific losses.

But, the Chinese Navy does not have an effective ability to project military power a meaningful distance from China. It's always possible that they pick a fight with someone who demonstrates colossal incompetence on the level the French did in the opening moves of WWII, but in the long run, that's not likely to help them anymore than it did the Germans.

Maybe in ten years, but if they don't stop their economic BS well before then, they won't be able to support the navy they have now, much less another ten years of build-up.

Maybe I'll do another post later on how the Chinese Army isn't as threatening as some people would like to think, either. Which, to be clear, is not 'harmless,' they have a large and fairly powerful military, but it's a regional superpower, not a world superpower.

I don't know enough to comment on most of this but i think you're numbers are out of date.

People's Liberation Army Navy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"

As of 2018, the Chinese navy operates over 496 combat ships and 232 various auxiliary vessels and counts 255,000 seamen in its ranks.''​

Keep in mind this is three years out of date, the chinese are simply advancing so fast that i can understand not keeping up with the numbers. I won't disagree that the Chinese would lose in almost any confrontation with the US right now or even a few years from now.

However i think it will be much less than a decade before they feel confident in throwing down. Many people seem to have developed a nasty habit of dismissing the advancements China makes out of hand(not you btw) so i'm worried one day the west is going to get it's shit pushed in and be surprised.

The sheer scale of the things they do like their railroads,nuclear energy,factories,etc and the size of their population is only going to benefit them more as time goes on not less. There is very much a ticking clock until they are strong enough to sit down at the table and simply win.