General News Regarding China & Hong Kong

[aelf]

Hang on you're blaming the rise of white supremacy and fascism on China?

It's not that strain of authoritarianism, but the more traditional right-wing/neoliberal strain that might sometimes appear in places like The Economist.

Even on social media, the influence of ideologies from countries like China and Singapore (and quite likely sponsored by them) are gaining traction, somewhat to the detriment the so-called 'Western' ideas of democracy and freedom - like this:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=363637304319697

 

[Lexicus]

closing the regime off from liberalising influences

Eh, I agree with your general points here but I think this ship sailed like two decades ago or so.

If anything, the influence goes the other way: the opening of Western economies to oligarch money from all over the world has had a terribly corrupting and distorting effect on the political economy of the US (can't speak to other countries really but I think the UK has had a similar influx of criminal money from all over the world in London).

I actually agree in principle with Commodore here. I wouldn't be in favor of an embargo, but I would absolutely be in favor of imposing a rule for all imports to the US preventing us from outsourcing pollution, labor exploitation and other costs of production. I think the US should pursue a strategy to "contain" China which should include sealing off our economy from Chinese exports if necessary.

Now, whether we can pull that off with this idiot in charge....doubtful. And tbh there is not much to choose between a country ruled by the Republican Party and a country ruled by the CCP.

 

[rah]

I also want to mention that I did not advocate for war. What I advocated for was strangling China economically, like we were doing to Japan until they made the choice to attack us. I'm hoping 2019 China will be smarter than 1941 Japan and choose to democratize on its own rather than choose war.

I doubt their ruling class will voluntarily give up power.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I would have thought a bunch of missiles would almost immediately turn a surface fleet into new coral reefs these days

One of the US Navy's most prominent worry beads is just this. Despite @Commodore's insistence that the US military can handle anything and everything thrown at it, this is not the case. Anti-missile defense is notoriously hard to pull off and unlike a more conventional attack, there's no way to retreat and regroup from it as the attack is ongoing. Once the missiles are flying you have a few minutes to react and then it's over.

China doesn't have the ability to strike our air bases in Missouri.

Yes they do. Their ICBM's can reach us just as easily as ours can reach them. Thinking that the US Navy can attack China in their own seas and territory and have that not escalate into full-blown nuclear exchanges is foolhardy.

I'm sympathetic to the Hong Kong protestors and China's actions are a clear repudiation of the agreement they made with the UK to not meddle in HK's politics for 50 years after the handover. But I have to say it's fanciful to think that China was going to rigidly abide by that treaty to begin with and given the way the UK took over HK in the first place, I don't think the UK or anyone else really has the moral right to demand that treaty remain in force.

 

[Lexicus]

this is not the case.

yup

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/chilli...es-show-us-forces-crushed-by-russia-and-china

https://taskandpurpose.com/russia-china-war-games

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...hina-are-crushing-us-military-war-games-46677

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Thanks for the links, that was the stuff I was referring to but was too lazy to look up myself. It's an open secret that missiles are recognized by the USN itself as an achilles heel and it's for lack of trying. As I said, anti-missile defenses are really hard to pull off.

But all that is besides the point because I think as soon as the USN starts attacking, China will escalate to full-blown nuclear apocalypse because yeah, the USN would probably demolish a lot of their military even if they get beaten up in the process.

 

[Lexicus]

To be clear (since Commodore already pulled the "air base in Missouri" line) we are talking about China wiping the floor with US forces in the western Pacific, not China invading the US West Coast or something. But while China would find it difficult to hit our air bases in Missouri, our air bases in Missouri do not help us to deal with Chinese aggression against e.g. Taiwan or Japan.

edit: and yes obviously this is all assuming a war doesn't just go nuclear in the first few minutes.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

To be clear (since Commodore already pulled the "air base in Missouri" line) we are talking about China wiping the floor with US forces in the western Pacific, not China invading the US West Coast or something. But while China would find it difficult to hit our air bases in Missouri, our air bases in Missouri do not help us to deal with Chinese aggression against e.g. Taiwan or Japan.

Yeah I know but I think the notion that it would be a cakewalk in the China Sea is laughable. And then they'd nuke us.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Seeing how crazy the world is today, a direct war between nuclear powers may go nuclear a second after the first soldier of any side is reported dead.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Yeah I know but I think the notion that it would be a cakewalk in the China Sea is laughable. And then they'd nuke us.

Well, carriers are protected by a bunch of Arlleigh Burke and Ticonderoga scorts with lots of defensive Standard missiles. Problem with defending the fleet against a big power is that if you fail a single incoming missile (and there will be hundreds) your carrier is sunk and you have lost the war. Then there are silent diesel submarines and these new hypersonic antiship ballistic missiles which are invulnerable (given that they really work).

To many eggs in a single basket and too many menaces around to call it a cakewalk.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I did not mean to give the impression that the USN has no anti-missile defenses, just that they'd be insufficient to prevent massive losses.

 

[Commodore]

Yes they do. Their ICBM's can reach us just as easily as ours can reach them. Thinking that the US Navy can attack China in their own seas and territory and have that not escalate into full-blown nuclear exchanges is foolhardy.

I don't think it would result in a nuclear exchange, which is why I don't factor their nuclear arsenal into the equation. The only thing I think that would cause any nuclear power to use their arsenal would be a full-scale invasion of their homeland that they feel they cannot repel. We aren't going to invade China, Xi Jinping isn't a madman, and we certainly aren't going to be the ones to nuke first unless the PLA is battering down the doors of the White House so China using their nukes over what would ultimately be a series of skirmishes in the South China Sea would see them lose all credibility on the international stage and would see the whole world unite against them.

Yeah I know but I think the notion that it would be a cakewalk in the China Sea is laughable

I never said it would be a cakewalk though. I said I was confident we would win, but that it certainly wouldn't be easy. I think you are also failing to account for the sheer industrial potential of the US. A war with a major power like China would put us in WWII mode as far as industrial production goes. Remember: we took massive losses against Japan as well, but it was our industrial capacity to quickly replace those losses that allowed us to shrug those losses off an press on until we won. Our allies in the region would also, hopefully, be harassing the Chinese at every conceivable opportunity, keeping them from bringing their full might to bear against us.

our air bases in Missouri do not help us to deal with Chinese aggression against e.g. Taiwan or Japan.

Yes they do. The bombers there are capable of conducting missions around the globe. While Taiwanese can Japanese forces are fighting China with our navy backing them up, our strategic bombers from Missouri would start bombing Chinese infrastructure to start grinding down their ability to make war.

yup

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/chilli...es-show-us-forces-crushed-by-russia-and-china

https://taskandpurpose.com/russia-china-war-games

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/b...hina-are-crushing-us-military-war-games-46677

And you think we've learned nothing from those war games or adapted our doctrines to address the weaknesses identified? I mean, it's not like they conduct those war games, see the result and just throw up their hands and say "Pack it up boys, no sense in fighting because we're gonna lose!" The whole point of those war games is precisely to identify weaknesses like this and address them so we aren't caught with our pants down if the scenario in question should materialize.

 

[Zelig]

Hong Kong is in a precarious position now, and I feel the UK has a lot of responsibility for that. Abandoning it to China without giving the population any say about the issue is one more dark stain on the dark history of the UK de-colonisation efforts, to put on top of its darker history of colonisation.

The UK had no leverage in 1997 and still managed to eke out relatively favourable terms for Hong Kong, which China has decided to ignore. I don't know what more you'd expect the UK to do, unless you're talking about pre-1997 actions.

 

[Commodore]

I don't know what more you'd expect the UK to do, unless you're talking about pre-1997 actions.

Yeah, they never should have given it up to China. They should have either maintained control of it, or granted Hong Kong independence. What was China going to do in 1997? Invade? Not likely. The Chinese military in 1997 was large, but also poorly equipped, supplied and trained and had no significant blue water navy. They were in no shape to risk starting a major war over Hong Kong.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I would have thought a bunch of missiles would almost immediately turn a surface fleet into new coral reefs these days

That's my understanding too, that even modern naval platforms can't stop large clusters of missiles fired at them consistently. China would be useless in the middle of the Pacific but could dump a ton of missiles on any navy that gets near it, and "near" is pretty far these days.

 

[Zelig]

Yeah, they never should have given it up to China. They should have either maintained control of it, or granted Hong Kong independence. What was China going to do in 1997? Invade? Not likely. The Chinese military in 1997 was large, but also poorly equipped, supplied and trained and had no significant blue water navy. They were in no shape to risk starting a major war over Hong Kong.

That wasn't an option. Hong Kong was by default Chinese, culturally and legally. To China, The UK asserting authority over it post-1997 would be broadly equivalent to them asserting authority over any other Chinese city.

 

[Samson]

That wasn't an option. Hong Kong was by default Chinese, culturally and legally. To China, The UK asserting authority over it post-1997 would be broadly equivalent to them asserting authority over any other Chinese city.

I do not think that is true. They had control over the area, and that could have been maintained. To control another Chinese city they would have to invade.

I think they should have had a referendum, with at least independence and Chinese control on the ballot, perhaps continued UK control. They should have then respected the result of the referendum. I am not sure what "leverage" they needed to do that that they did not have.

 

[Commodore]

That wasn't an option. Hong Kong was by default Chinese, culturally and legally. To China, The UK asserting authority over it post-1997 would be broadly equivalent to them asserting authority over any other Chinese city.

But if the UK did assert that authority, what could China really do about it? Get a resolution passed in the UN? We've seen how useless those are. Their economy and military were nothing like they are now, and the UK certainly would have had the backing of the US, which was still in its prime at that point so they had no economic or military means at their disposal to enforce their claim on Hong Kong.

So even if China had a legal claim to the city, they had no means of enforcing that claim. And if you can't enforce a claim, then it's pretty much like you don't have that claim at all.

 

[Cheetah]

And then they'd nuke us.

I find this prediction of yours so laughable its even insulting.

Any use of nuclear weapons would also be the final use of nuclear weapons. There's no way those giving the orders would be willing to end themselves and their positions simply because they lost a lot of ships in a war.

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What we should do, as I have said earlier, is to start to economically isolate China.

 

[Broken_Erika]

What we should do, as I have said earlier, is to start to economically isolate China.

We can start as soon as people stop buying crap that is made in or has parts from China.......