How strong is China?

They can't beat the US so it really doesn't matter, since we're the only major country they're likely to get in a shooting war with.

>>30960073

Unless they get into one of their frequest wars with Vietnam.

I think a country that big, with that many people and natural resources, is pretty much destined to become a superpower barring deliberate incompetence by its rulers (i.e. Mao). If the economy improves the military improves, and likewise if the economy crashes. Seems pretty basic to me.

>>30960139
We might get dragged in on Vietnam's side this time around.

>>30960060
weak

At the moment China is so far behind the United States militaristically that it's laughable. They might be a threat in like 50 years, maybe.

>>30960073
>we're the only major country they're likely to get in a shooting war with
India, despite the memes.
>>30961469
The chinks are getting better by the minute, which can't be said for the US mil.

China has two rather big problems in the way of achieving parity with the US.

First of all, it's easy to achieve rapid industrial growth by pushing a bunch of peasants onto factory floors. The USSR did it. Korea and Japan did it better than the commies could have ever dreamed of.

In order to progress from that to a knowledge based economy, it gets harder. You want at least moderate democratic institutions and serious protections against corruption.

You can't get those things without confronting a bunch of Maoist princelings.

If you don't get them, the economy will stagnate, and the rapidly growing Chinese economy is the only way the PRC has been able to keep their population under control. The Chinese population will only grow more unstable as growth tapers off and the full demographic effects of the One Child Policy and the whole "30 million more men then women" thing kick in.

There's also the problem that everyone in the region hates their guts. China's natural impulse has been to use brinkmanship with their neighbors to arouse nationalist tensions and keep their own population under control.

This comes at a cost. The South China Sea dispute and the whole ADIZ thing has pushed everyone in the region to cooperate more closely with the US and one another.

If China exceeds the US in GDP, they will still pale in comparison to the US + Japan + South Korea + the rest of the gang.

Needless to say, this situation has a great deal of potential for miscalculation, or prolonged bouts of instability.

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No joint command
No wartime experience
No missiles capable of reaching US
Airforce built in 1960s
Tanks built in 1950s
Training is 30% Marxist indoctrination, 20% marching
2 million army, but having large reserves of canon fodder in 2016 is irrelevant
China is supposedly good at cyber warfare, but the rest is woefully lacking

>>30960060

no one knows for sure. they've updated their hardware significantly since the early 90s, but no major conflict on their part to test new gear and doctrine.

>>30961542
>which can't be said for the US mil.
wew lad

let me know when China gets that EMALS supercarrier in service, or the service-wide IOC/FRP of tactical VLO manned fighters, or the PGM stockpiles necessary to fight a war, or a single SSN or SSBN that compares to an Akula I/Typhoon, much less a Virginia/Ohio.

>>30961999

>Airforce built in 1960s
Various fighters of supposedly F35 level?
>Tanks built in 1950s
Type 99?

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>>30960060


Somewhere between Russia and the UK.

All 3 of them could team up against the US and our Navy would probably take the only significant hits, but they get maybe 1, 2 battle groups tops before they are turned into the next Great Barrier Reef.

>>30962392
>Various fighters of supposedly F35 level?
Neither of which are IOC, or in FRP yet. Nor will they be for years. The J-20 just went into "LRIP", but doesn't even have it's production engines yet.

>>30961542

And they will get to US standards circa 2005 maybe by 2020. I'm willing to bet they have a few "big shows" for us but they will be mostly one-offs and quickly countered.

>>30962392
>Type 99?
only 650 total built since 2001 out of 6,000 total tanks in service.

>>30960060
Some groups of their military is up to NATO level.

The vast majority of their military, especially the land army, is very badly equipped and crippled with corruption and bad leadership.

A very large fraction of their training is just party doctrine and loyalty training, rather than anything effective. They also spend only a fraction what the US does on each soldier, basically a chinese soldier has a rifle, some ammo, a radio and uniform, and at least a third of his training is just marching about singing patriotic songs.

There's a lot of them, but they're shitty and they can't force project very well at all, they're so desperate to keep building their island bases because they can't keep a navy in the water well enough to project over that area with actual ships.

They're scary because of their size alone, in quality they're the same as any second world army.

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How strong is China?

Here is a video of some Chinese soldiers helping a farmer get his donkey out of a well.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=44f_1460086918&comments=1

>>30963587
I thought this was going to be hilariously bad. They were sort of uncoordinated, but they got it out without any real mistakes.

>>30960060
Decent threat. Honestly they have stolen enough data on the construction of our fighter jets and military practices to be considered a danger. As soon as you think your invulnerable you become complacent. Complacent targets equal easy pray.

Thinking your enemy is not a threat makes your pretty stupid. In straight up numbers in hand to hand they would win. We're lucky enough to have this thing called an ocean in the way so numbers are limited to what can be transported. There's hundreds of thousands ways they can cripple us and we them. Fine line between how it will effect citizens the world around.

They have enough resources to do what they need even with crappy political blocks. If they put their mind to it the can very easily pass the US in world power. Granted it would be a radical shift in the way the country runs which might end up destabilizing there economy...

>>30960060
they cant

>>30961999
>Airforce built in the 1960s
So the J-11s and J-10s were from the 60s? Poor post/bait.

>>30961999
I would study her little red book

>>30961999
Missiles? Like icbm's?
They have those.... Just not really accurate. Google it.

>>30960232

>Vietnam destroys China and are hailed as heroes

I'm okay with this.

>>30967188
They did the same to the US before the US said fuck it

>it's easy to achieve rapid industrial growth by pushing a bunch of peasants onto factory floors

>If China exceeds the US in GDP, they will still pale in comparison to the US + Japan + South Korea + the rest of the gang

These are 100% true.

Also, Gross GDP is a very poor way to rate the economic prowess of a country like China.

If, for instance, per capita income is $100, $70 of that is used for subsistence living, and $25 is sucked up in taxes, you're going to have a hell of a fucking time trying to gear your economy to a war footing.

Also China's shitty navy is a huge liability. They do not have direct access to important natural resources, like oil, which is controlled by large Western multinationals (Exxon/BP/etc). Blockades will bring them grinding to a halt.

In addition, China has a SERIOUS water problem. They have a few canals that are lifelines that are INCREDIBLY vulnerable, and necessary to bring water to areas like Beijing. Blow those fuckers up and they're screwed.

Think about China like a Castle, with WAAAAYYY too many fucking people in it. All we'd have to do is cut them off from the outside world and let them starve to death.

Chinese have a strong patriotism, and the party prepares them for that. In times of war, they will suck it up.
About resources, here sir, you are clueless. Rare earths, so necessary for electronics, are almost a chinese monopoly. And about the oil, China is well geared up. They are developing their own fields, building gaso and oleoducts from central asia - which you can´t block, and also developing other assets aroind the world, mainly Africa and something in South America, so, in case of war, they won't suffer for lack of oil.

>>30967810
You sir are funny

>>30960060
They have nukes. Nasty ones, too. Fall out beyond US and Russian nukes. Crude but effective. You just can't plant anything in the area for 50,000 years.

>>30960204
>with that many people and natural resources

What natural resources? They're projected to become the largest importer of oil, and the Central Committee publicly abandoned their efforts to become 95% self sufficient in food a few years ago.

China has some serious resource problems that need to be addressed before they can hope to establish the kind of stable economy that makes them competitive on the world stage.

>>30961542
>chinks are getting better by the minute,

Because they're still at the stage where improvement can be measured by orders of magnitude. They've got a quarter century of work to do before they can get to the incremental improvement stage.

China does have a secret weapon though. Rude as fuck, uncouth tourists and college students. Seriously those shits could be used as an area denial weapon.

>>30960060
They have too much money on hand and they are spending on anything and everything.
if they are not ahead of USA already they soon will be.

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>>30960232

> China invades Vietnam
> we supply Vietnam will all the goodies they could ever want
> twenty years and 200,000 casualties later, China leaves in disgrace
> our fucking face when

>>30967188
>>30967193
It's still hilarious to me that China watched what happened to the US in Vietnam and said to themselves, "You know what? That looks like fun. Let's book our next working vacation there."

They're really good at killing bugs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Bo2ro60ro

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>>30969816
>>30969841
That would also complete the naval isolation of China.
>SK, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, the US, and Australia all coordinating a blockade of the western Pacific
>China's face when 98% of its foreign trade goes poof

>>30967810
>Chinese have a strong patriotism, and the party prepares them for that. In times of war, they will suck it up.
The Chinese generation of today is not the battle-hardened and hardship-inured Chinese generation of 1950. The grain deficit cutting off the lower and middle class access to meat alone in case of conflict and trade interruption would put immense social/political internal pressure on Chinese leadership.

>Rare earths, so necessary for electronics, are almost a chinese monopoly.
In current production, yes. But only because the Chinese produce it so cheaply. The Chinese are able to undercut everyone on rare earths because they have few to no environmental controls on its production. In case of war, the US will reopen its own rare earth mines and start tapping its vast strategic reserves in that and other resources.

>And about the oil, China is well geared up. They are developing their own fields, building gaso and oleoducts from central asia - which you can´t block, and also developing other assets aroind the world, mainly Africa and something in South America, so, in case of war, they won't suffer for lack of oil.
In case of war with the US, the USN will cut or severely disrupt Chinese access to any oil (SCS, south American, ME, African) being shipped through the western Pacific or SCS/ECS. The only remaining sources are the eastern pipelines, which the US absolutely can access through saturation airstrikes if necessary. Meanwhile, China has little to no capability to curtail US access to essential imports. Even if they miraculously close down the Pacific to trade, the US still has the entire Atlantic.

>>30969001
>They have nukes. Nasty ones, too. Fall out beyond US and Russian nukes. Crude but effective. You just can't plant anything in the area for 50,000 years.
They have comparatively very few, and their nukes currently barely reach the West Coast of the US with only a few dozen launch vehicles capable of getting them there.

>>30969938
China does have a space program which suggests unlimited range ICBMs are possible for them to build.

>>30969950
>which suggests unlimited range ICBMs are possible for them to build.
They haven't bothered yet due to their current stance on nuclear weapons: just enough to present a credible and damaging threat, but nowhere near enough to compete with the US or Russia in counter-weight or saturation strikes.

As they have comparatively few warheads and vehicles capable of striking the mainland US, US ABM systems currently and with the increasing future capability suggest a widening imbalance in nuclear deterrence. With a Russian massed strike, US ABM systems mean a relatively small intercept percentage; with the Chinese it edges into very significant territory.

The Chinese are trying to address this without building more warheads, but are finding it difficult. Their submarine forces technology is probably the farthest behind of all naval tech (including carrier build/ops considerations). Their latest operational SSBN (Type 94) is roughly on a level with the 1970's vintage Soviet Delta-III, and they're still working on getting regular deterrence patrols up and running. IIRC they've only completed two of them total in history so far. Their Type 96 should be a big improvement, but still well behind. There's the further disadvantage in this area that any transit routes their SSBNs take to patrol routes will have to cross shallow areas heavily seeded by US SOSUS/IUSS/SURTASS assets.

>>30967810
Good luck importing oil from overseas past the largest navy in the world.

>>30970421
no shit lol