What Are China's Military Interests? And What Will They Be?

Originally posted by darkhero
World TOP 10 - MILITARY SPENDING COUNTRIES

Country In Billion Dollars


5. China 31.1
.

I think most military experts think China under reports its spending and its close to 65 billion right now. Some think that could triple by 2015

I would agree with that. China seems to consistently u nderreport its expendatures. However, so did the Soviet Union during the cold war. When the Defence Industrial Complex is also owned by the state, you can report whatever you want.

Territorial conquest and ambition goes way way back in Chinese history, certainly beyond the US or most present countries.

Taiwan would be first on thier expansionist plans as perhaps Japan.

IMO China is setting up to be the Japan of the 1930’s. I think it sees local regions as its area of influence and eventually control. How far are they willing to go to make that clear? That's the real question.

Or maybe wants to control both Taiwan and Japan so they wont have to advance a whole lot in technology, just take it from those who have what you want. Japan and Taiwan both have nothing that could stop China even if they BOTH were to draft people into a military and attempt a defence, just the distance from China to the other two is so small air bombing would start so fast they would have NO chance of firing back. If china lets the US expend itself they can swarm whoever they want. Then again if you believe in the grand scheme of things as far as NWO (New World Order) goes then they can control China and push the US out of the way because its more questioning than others. Just do a trade in slaves, ones who are used to it for ones who arnt and take more time to control.

Imo, China will annexe Taiwan, Korea, Japan and then move through SE Asia and have a go at Northern Australia, who will successfully repel them. All moves will be motivated by the need to gain access to energy reserves and will be underscored by a notion of China's right to living space and its superior civilisation and superpower status in the world. Of course, this strategy will end in tears as China implodes into fractuous regions run by warlords, as happened to the old USSR.

In the process of military expansion into Asia several cities may get nuked, including the Northern Australian city of Darwin, unfortunately. In addition there will probably be an enormous naval battle to gain control of the Straits of Malacca involving the naval forces of Australia, the US and Singapore teeing off against Chinese and possibly Russian naval forces. The allied forces will probably get blown out of the water by a couple of anti-ship cruise missiles. Timeframe? 2010-2015.





[edit on 8-3-2006 by JamesinOz]

[edit on 8-3-2006 by JamesinOz]

Originally posted by JamesinOz
Imo, China will annexe Taiwan, Korea, Japan and then move through SE Asia and have a go at Northern Australia, who will successfully repel them. All moves will be motivated by the need to gain access to energy reserves and will be underscored by a notion of China's right to living space and its superior civilisation and superpower status in the world. Of course, this strategy will end in tears as China implodes into fractuous regions run by warlords, as happened to the old USSR.

In the process of military expansion into Asia several cities may get nuked, including the Northern Australian city of Darwin, unfortunately. In addition there will probably be an enormous naval battle to gain control of the Straits of Malacca involving the naval forces of Australia, the US and Singapore teeing off against Chinese and possibly Russian naval forces. The allied forces will probably get blown out of the water by a couple of anti-ship cruise missiles. Timeframe? 2010-2015.





[edit on 8-3-2006 by JamesinOz]

[edit on 8-3-2006 by JamesinOz]

If China annexed those three nations it would be annexing a problem it couldn't control.

Japan hates China and Korea.

Korea hates China and Japan.

And China hates Korea and Japan.

Wars would be frequent and China would have more problems than the USSR. It would be inable to sustain its "Empire".

I don't think China's going to annex anything.

They've had the benefit of watching Japan's postwar ascent, and I think they've been able to discern from that that economic power trumps military power in most ways that count.

The trick is, can they survive the increasing stress between the rich cities and the poor countryside? As donwhite pointed out, there have already been violent confrontations in rural china.

China is modernizing it's military, but they'd still have a tough time taking on little Taiwan, let alone South Korea or Japan. They could give anyone, including the US, a good bloody nose in a defensive fight close to home, but they're not really equipped to take significant forces far from their borders.

As far as Tawain goes, China sees it not as a foreign country but as a renegade province, which it essentially is. Taiwan does call itself the "Republic of China", you know. And they only gave up their claim to being the legitimate government of all of China relatively recently.

I don't think China wants to take Taiwan by force though - they'd rather absorb it intact... I'm thinking of all the Taiwanese PC components in my latest machine

[edit on 3/8/06 by xmotex]

Originally posted by Stratrf_Rus

Japan hates China and Korea.

Korea hates China and Japan.

And China hates Korea and Japan.

Wars would be frequent and China would have more problems than the USSR. It would be inable to sustain its "Empire".

Do you hate this world. please spread something good or you really know.

China is going to annex anything?

Does UK or USA or Russia or Japan or whatever the country want to annex anything?

I think all of them want to annex the whole world if possible. But none of them have the ability.

Yes, it is very likely china's military spending is much higher, but China is still too weak to compete with USA. There is no way for china to annex another country.

I believe that China’s primary military interests are the modernization of its rather obsolete war machine, substantial reduction in standing military men numbers compensated by their increase in combat worthiness, with the end goal being a flexible, technologically competitive and strategically far reaching, quick to deploy forces. Global power projection goals should slowly start to become apparent as China prepares to construct her first aircraft carriers, and possibly modify the ex-Soviet recently acquired Kuznetzov class aircraft carrier “Varyag” which is currently berthed in Dalian shipyard docks and is been subjected to this date unkown of magnitude refurbishing activities. Will she become China’s first operational aircraft carrier, a naval aircraft operations training vessel or just another casino, it’s anyone’s guess at the moment. But given the political effort exerted by the Chinese leadership over acquisition of this naval asset and its subsequent attraction of worldwide media attention, it could be said that the probability of it ending up as some type of military vessel is somewhat larger than the one of it becoming a casino. If made operational, China will have acquired herself a very potent platform indeed: with its 67,500 metric tons (compared to 88,500 metric tons of the U.S. Nimitz) maximum displacement and the ability to cary some 45-50 Su-33 fighters she will finally have the means of projecting power in blue water zones far away from her mainland coastal waters. Her escort platforms are already available (Lanzhou class DDG), and are boasting some really impressive specs: fixed, 360° 3D coverage phase array radar antennas, 48 100km+ ranged high performance SAMs, over-the-horizon SSM capability, capable CIWS platforms and a plethora of other high-tech equipment making them one of the most capable ships of their class (if not the ones, considering they displace only 6,600 tons). Add to this the acquisition of 4 Russian Sovremenny class DDGs, armed with extremely lethal Moskit supersonic ASCMs, 8 Russian made modified Kilo class subs (armed with anti-ship supersonic Club missiles), their increasingly sophisticated domestic naval production (2 Lanzhou class DDGs, 2 Guanzghou class DDGs and 2 Type 054 frigates) all featuring low-observability technology, and new, bigger and more potent platforms to come, it can safely be said that the PLAN is soon to become a world-contending naval force to be reckoned with. Complementary to this is an equally impressive growth in air-force power, manifested with the introduction of the Russian Su-27/Su-30MKK air superiority/multipurpose fighters, the former of which are domestically built under license; the advent of their own indigenous fighter (J-10) boasting super-maneuverability in the class of Rafale and very potent home-made and Russian-imported arsenal of medium and long range AAM.

Although it may seem like the Chinese are building themselves up with some malignant intentions (as could only beseem a Communist government in the eyes of the Westerners) they are merely doing the restructurings and modernizations that were decades overdue and are by no means anywhere close to where they should be hoping to be, given their ever-increasing economic might. But given enough time, (say 10 years) China will and should have become a naval and military power second only to that of U.S. in the region of East and Southeast Asia.

As for the best strategy regarding Taiwan, I can sum it up in one single word: patience. A mild political and strong economical campaign should be the way to go. As China becomes more powerful (economically and militarily wise) the spectra of strategic options available to her undertaking will have continuously grown bigger and bigger, while that of Taiwan will have dwindled and dwindled. Eventually, the disposition of the Taiwanese people will have grown sufficiently “amicable” towards PRC that a “peaceful” unification of some sort should become a very interesting option indeed. Well, that’s at least what I hope will happen, as any other scenario doesn’t look very benign at all.

The Global War on Terror is the latest fashion of today's post-modern political entrepreneurism, and China would be very wise to jump the wagon and end it's decade long isolationist policy. Only so can it achieve in a "politically correct" manner some (if not most) of its long term global strategic goals. And I believe that's exactly what they're going to do.
Cheers

I don't know why everyone thinks China is going to invade Japan or Taiwan.

China has such a massive population, I see them going North or West in a landgrab. What do they need two litttle tiny islands for? Is it worth it for them to goto war with Japan or Taiwan?

Mongolia or some of the old former soviet territories would probably be easier and beneficial to them for the long run.

I doubt China is building up it's army to goto war. I don't think Russia would sacrifice Siberia, I don't think Europe and the US would let China take over Western Asia. They are either htinking of fighting a useless war for Taiwan or just modernizing to keep up with times (since most of the rest of the world has modern armies). And having a powerful army is kind of like pride.

this might sound funny but I've had ideas in the past about china attacking India, because it would be most useful for China having ports in the south asian sea. Look at how much effort and expense that Russia put out to obtain such a port in that area and they never got it done.