U.S. vs. China

Having another country take over your country will cause that. Losing a war will not.

Also, remember the firing of nukes isn't a decision made by the people, it's decision made by people in power. People who can rise to the highest level of power in a rather screwed up political system such as China's tend to be peopl who REALLY want that power. If they were to face total defeat and thereby removal from power by force, not to mention the cultural significance of "humiliation", they will try to take you down with him.

1. Can the U.S. invade China in the first place?
2. Are America's technological and firepower advantages helpful in the long run against 1 billion people?
3. How effective would U.S. airpower be?
4. Is it safe to say every Chinese citizen would fight?
5. Can the U.S. hold up against a modern military supported by guerrilla warfare?
6. Any other thoughts?

1. No, not realistically. We wouldn't have the manpower to do so. At least not in the conventional sense...

2. No, unless you were willing to first inflict massive civilian casualties in order to quell resistance...then invade.

3. Air superiority would be established relatively quickly, as most of China's Air Force would likely be destroyed on the ground before they ever took off.

4. No, but if even half of them did, well, we're looking at overwhelming numbers aren't we?

5. No. Again, only IF we were willing to inflict MASSIVE civilian casualties first.

6. Yes, let's hope that we NEVER have to find the answer to any of these questions, as both powers are nuclear, and in the event of a conflict, eventually, it WOULD go nuclear, and then we ALL lose....

The thing about inflicting massive civilian caulties is the more civilians you kill, the more the people will hate you and want to kill you for revenge therefore creating higher morale and more people to join the guerilla warfare. Even if you kill 90% of the Chinese population, we still have a overwhelming advantage in manpower. And 90% civilian casulty is IMPOSSIBLE, the world will stop you before that kind of thing ever happens, your own people will resent killing all those people for no particularly good reason.

I wouldn't say that Chinese fighter jets wouldn't even be able to get off the ground. China is huge, there are only so many B-2s and F-117s and airpower can't do everything. Infact, airpower can't do that much on the conventional terms except for destroying bunkers and other aircrafts. China has 4th generation planes, we are not that far behind in terms of aviation technology. And as mentioned before, US won't be able to have air superiority over the entire CHina, they would need twenty times the planes and much longer range for the planes they already have because China isn't Iraq, China is the size of 100 Iraqs, thats how many planes you would need.

The size of China has nothing to do with air superiority when the Chinese have no planes left.

Originally posted by W4rl0rD
Having another country take over your country will cause that. Losing a war will not.

Most conquered people don't get whiped out. America isn't going in there to commit genocide of the Chinese people.

Originally posted by Quest
Nukes. THe only way to deal with that many soldiers, even if you out tech and firepower them, is to use mass area destruction. If the US would have to nuke most of china to actualy win (end of combat) against china in a war.

This is of course given publicly known military tech. The US may already have a better method that isn't public. I'm sure the war monger prepare for everything.

What comes to my mind is the "Netron Bomb" of the late 70's. A small tactical Nuke developed with the Europian theater in mind. The bomb was designed to yield a deadly output of low half-life radiation that would be leathal to humans during a short duration, but not cause the widespread damage that WWII wrought on the Europe cities.

President Carter banned it to prevent an escalation of the cold war nuke race with USSR. You just have to know we (US) couldn't just toss the technology away once that particular "Geini is out of the bottle."

Most conquered people don't get whiped out. America isn't going in there to commit genocide of the Chinese people.

If they hoped to successfully invade China, they'd have to.

I'm not saying that:
1. the world would allow it
2. the US would do it
or
3. the US would be able to do it

All I'm saying is that logistically, in order for the US to successfully invade China, it would be necessary to inflict civilian casualties on a scale never before seen in warfare. I certainly do not advocate it. The question posed in the original thread was COULD they, not SHOULD they. That is the question I was answering.

As for the air power.

Assuming a non-nuclear scenario, cruise missiles and stealth fighters and bombers would knock out air defense systems and runways. While China IS huge, it's main airbases in both number and defense, are not that much more numerous than most modern nations. Not to mention, with most of the air defenses out of the way, more sorties can be launched with less threat on an almost exponential basis. True, this would not be the cakewalk Iraq was as far as establishing air superiority. Many planes would be lost, no doubt. But it would be achievable.

After establishing air superiority, the US would then need to rely on this to:
a) thin the numbers of Chinese troops and armor
and
b) destroy the Chinese manufacturing and infrastructure to cut power to the war machine
and
c) demoralize them with attacks on population centers
This would take many many months, BEFORE the committing of ground troops. Needless to say, it is unlikely of course, that China would not launch nukes if in this position (and we'd be unable to destroy them all initially or otherwise), but, assuming they didn't, the rest of the world is unlikely to stand for it as well.

Upon a land invasion, any resistance would have to be met by an overwhelming campaign of simple out and out slaughter of the enemy using any means necessary. No, it isn't PC, or very nice, but I'm talking what we'd HAVE to do in order to win this. It isn't likely that even Bush would go this far (thus the debacle in Iraq...in war you must either scare the enemy into submission, or make the people your friend...neither has been done successfully in Iraq, and so it will continue to plague the administration.)

Again, first, the US will never be willing to go to the inhuman tactics that would be necessary to win a conventional war in China. Second, there wouldn't be a conventional war when both sides have nukes. Third, NEITHER nation wants to test any of these scenarios, nor do it's citizens.

China has been invaded in the past by very small forces. We would not have to commit genocide to accomplish it.

Let's say we would need to scare people. We still wouldn't have to do it to everyone, but just make a single good example. Demolising a single city would achieve this well enough.

China has certainly been invaded by smaller forces before, but only twice were they successful. Let's have a little history lesson:

The Mongols(Genghis Khan, Yuan dynasty):
1)Well, everyone knows about his strategies, it is precisely the "massive civilian" casulties that many here speak of.
2)China was at war for decades against another nation(Liao), and then for decades more against yet another nation(Jin). In fact, by the time Mongols got to China, China was already divided in half(north and south) by the two dynasties(Jin and Song). It was under these circumstances that after yet many MORE decades of fighting, did Genghis Khan's son, Kublai Khan finally led his almost invincible Mongols to conquer China. Their conquest also only lasted less than a century, the shortest dynasty.

The Manchurians(Qing dynasty)
1)China had been decaying for decades, great uprising spread throughout the country. One of them, led by a peasant named Li, who lead a peasant uprising that finally resulted in the capture of the capital city. The Emperor was killed and the dynasty(Ming) had been finished BEFORE the Manchurians even crossed the Chinese defenses(in fact, they were held outside of the Great Wall by a famous Chinese general, more on that later)
2)After capturing the capital city, the peasant-soldiers ran buck-wild. They have had NO education, set up NO government, and all they did was loot, squander, and rape. The worst came when the peasant leader Li slept with the wife of the general who is still holding the Manchurians outside of the Great Wall. The general heard this news and decided to capitulate and let the Manchurians past the Chinese defenses without a fight. The now disorganized peasants were no match for the Manchurians.



As you can see, both successful invasions were following over a century of declining and decades of constant warfare wearing down the Chinese. If U.S. were to conquer China, it will be a much harder task than what the Mongols and the Manchurians faced.

The neat thing with China is, even when the Mongols invaded them, the Mongols turned Chinese instead of the Chinese turning Mongolian the way the Mongols wanted; China is one of the few cultures that for some reason, even if the people themself were enslaved, the culture of the country still absorbed the invaders, so that even if the Chinese people were conquered, the Chinese culture absorbed the conquerers, instead of the conquerer's culture becoming dominant.

The Chinese weren't that worn out when the Mongols arrived. They had heavy fortresses, more troops, and superior technology. They could never fight against the Mongols in the open.

China has far inferior technology when you look at the bigger picture. They have just a few hundred fourth generation planes, with inferior avionics and missiles. America's future fifth generation planes will demolish the Chinese air defenses.

The same pretty much applies to the Navy.

On the ground, the American FCS program will make us the most mobile, connected, and powerful military force the world has seen. We'll be the Mongols of today. The number difference isn't even that much of an advantage for China. They could only really equip about 2 million. America could easily raise 1 million.

Now, America's allies factor in. Who does China have? North Korea may come to their aid, but that's not much. They couldn't even handle South Korea. Japan and Australia are two of America' closest allies, both are more than a little paranoid of China. Both have been receiving increasingly powerful weapons from America, and that's likely to only increase with time.

Throughout the Cold War Russia could never really compete with us in weapons. To steal a Chinese phrase, they were paper tigers. Most of their equipment looks good only on paper. Their planes have poor avionics, and so do the tanks. They never reached the same level of training America had.

Time and time again when American equipment faced Russian, the American equipment won. The T-72's in Iraq were being used by Saddam's elite Republican Guard. They were relatively well trained, and had actual experience in combat against the Iranians. How much worse could they be then the Russians? I doubt it was that huge a difference compared to the kill ratios seen against America. We were only using M1's then, too.

China usees pretty much the same equipment.

People severely underestimate America's military, and have since the founding of this nation. We are probably the most dominating military force the world has seen.

Right on, however, China however is changing its forces and still will likely become a much more powerful nation in the future, especially when they get aircraft carriers.

Then you may end up with like what happened at the start of Top Gun, where the American F-14s are flying and encounter the enemy aircraft, and they mess around with each other, etc.....China has a while to go however.

the Iraqi t-72's supplied by russia were technically obsolete even then.

They were not fitted with any advanced equipment, with some of the tanks not even having motors in the turret's, so they were hand cranked.

Russia ripped iraq off with very poor basicaly equiped t-72's that were no match for russian t-72's let alone m1a1's and challenger's

Well, China can not compete with America militarily until they can economically. That's decades away, in spite of what many would have you believe. It's going to be about 40 years before China could gain enough ground to catch up.

If growth rates continue at present levels.... than china will catch the US in national purchasing power by 2014.

However china has a larger population so more money will be spent on infrastructure and social service's than in the US, leaving less money for the millitary.

On an interesting note it seems officers in the PLA are recieving a 50% pay rise this year to 360 dollars a month with remaining officers being cut for more NCO's

China will not continue it's current growth rate for long. They are already outgrowing resources like oil. Their economy is propped up by artificial limits. Their dollar is kept artificially low.

Besides that, you can't compare the growth rates of a developing nation to an already developed nation like America. We see more growth than any other developed nation.

true.. the chinese are looking to reduce their growth to about 7.5% which is more sustainable than 9/10%

Early signs are promising that the macro-econimic controls the government has introduced are working.

But compare china's GDP which is 7 Trillion and the US which is 10.5 trillion... there really is not much in it.

China's economy is growing at the moment by .5 trillion a year so in 7 years they will have caught the US

Nuclear bombs can easily solve the problem of an army of quantity, we need to work on building quality soldiers, possibly specialists of all trades.

Our purchasing power by person will rise significantly in around 20 years when the generation where every couple had at least four children start to die. Thats a HUGE decrease in population which some estimate around 4 - 5 hundred million which will bring up the purchasing power per person significantly.

Money is different in China. 380 dollars may not be a lot for Americans but WOW can that do a lot in CHina. For breakfast (go on the little outdoor restaurants beside the street), a whole tasty breakfast can cost as little as 20 cents and you seriously could not eat more than 1$ worth of food and thats more soup, more meat, more Yu Tiao, more Dou Fu Nao and more Dou jiang. Its not your five star restaurant food but I like the outdoor food much better. Home made food would even be cheaper. That shows you how much you could but with 1 dollar.

Chinese Yuan's value is being kept low for a reason, if our money's value grew to half of US. The officer would make 1500 dollar per month which is below average but much much better. Its all about the intentional value of the Yuan and the average Chinese person living confined within CHina, buying Chinese made things which are cheaper, you get more and pretty good quality.

Early signs are promising that the macro-econimic controls the government has introduced are working.

Not really. China hasn't even come to the most difficult part yet. Really, the only thing China had to do was open up to the foreign world and this growth was inevitable. American companies flooded in for the cheap labor.

It's growing beyond this that becomes hard. China needs to create higher paying jobs to really compete with America economically. The best, and probably the only way to do that is get rid of government controles, and become pure capitalists.

Chinese Yuan's value is being kept low for a reason, if our money's value grew to half of US. The officer would make 1500 dollar per month which is below average but much much better. Its all about the intentional value of the Yuan and the average Chinese person living confined within CHina, buying Chinese made things which are cheaper, you get more and pretty good quality.

This won't last. Europe, as well as America are making noise about taking the articifial caps currency rate off.

Besides that, many would argue that the drop of the American dollar is America's way of dealing with Europe and China.