Possible US / China War

[Roman Alymov]

3 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The Chinese are a culturally and racially homogenous country.  

I was under inpression Chineese dialects are different enough to people from South not to understand spoken language of people from North.... Late Simon Tan was able to identify provinces Chinesse tourisys in Moscow came from....

[sunday]

17 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

I was under inpression Chineese dialects are different enough to people from South not to understand spoken language of people from North.... Late Simon Tan was able to identify provinces Chinesse tourisys in Moscow came from....

Still, they are mostly Han.

[Roman Alymov]

27 minutes ago, sunday said:

Still, they are mostly Han.

""Han" is, as far as i understand, very wide group, far more diverse than, for example, ethnic Russians and Poles. But i am not pretending to be an expert.

Edited February 17, 2024 by Roman Alymov

[ink]

Just now, Roman Alymov said:

"Han" is, as far as i understand, wery wide group, far more diverse than, for example, ethnic Russians and Poles. But i am not pretending to be an expert.

Han is, as far as I understand it, a bit of an invented "ethnic" identity, designed to group together quite a range of what might in Europe be separate linguistic clusterings. That's a pretty vague way of putting it and I'm definitely not trying to cause offence to any Chinese readers.

[sunday]

2 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

""Han" is, as far as i understand, very wide group, far more diverse than, for example, ethnic Russians and Poles. But i am not pretending to be an expert.

 

1 hour ago, ink said:

Han is, as far as I understand it, a bit of an invented "ethnic" identity, designed to group together quite a range of what might in Europe be separate linguistic clusterings. That's a pretty vague way of putting it and I'm definitely not trying to cause offence to any Chinese readers.

You could be quite right. Wikipedia kind of disagrees, however. But considering how the PRC government would monitor that article, I think the question is open.

[Josh]

13 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The Chinese consume about 14 mil bbl/day, of which guesstimating from US consumption patterns, maybe about 6 million BBL/day are used by automobiles and aircraft. Much of the rest is consumed in industry, of which some might be switched over to coal to cut oil usage. Between Russia and domestic production, they need about 7 mil BBL/day from other sources.   Civilian auto consumption could be rationed to maybe about 30% of the current civilian consumption level, forcing people to car pool, use trains and buses, buy electric vehicles, etc, to cope with their ration limitations.  (Chinese autos are about 319 million their EV production is about 5 million a year out of 27 million).

Imports from 3rd countries such as India, (importing from the ME and then re-exporting to China on Indian ships and overland) could be boosted from 0 right now to maybe 2 mill BBL a day.  (Unless - are you planning for the US to go to war with the entire world in this fit of madness we are discussing?)

So, rationing takes the Chinese from 14 to 10 consumed per day.  Increased imports take them from production of 7 per day to maybe 9 per day.  This allows their strategic reserve to cover the gap for a little short of 2 years, by which time their imports from Russia, India, etc, is presumably increased to cover the difference and put China in a net plus on the oil front.  They would also start converting coal to oil directly, like Germany did in WW2, adding another maybe 2-3 million BBL per day.

Conclusion - unless you are proposing that the US goes to war with the entire planet,  there is no reason to suppose China's oil situation will result in a crisis.  It will be covered by rationing, reconfiguring Chinese consumption to use more coal, and more re-export schemes from 3rd parties.

 

Physically no one is going to starve to death. The same is true in the U.S.; if Walmart shelves are empty, life can go on. But the populations of both countries are going to be less comfortable, and since China’s dependencies are more basic (food, energy) and its GDP is more dependent on exports, I think if anything the Chinese get the slightly worse end of the deal. But the whole world would suffer an economic depression, so this only differs by degree.

As for the U.S. going to war with the whole world, that is not what a blockade actually is and more over from a naval perspective, it would not be overly challenging to actually go to war against “the whole world “ if you exclude US Allie’s like Japan, Australia, Korea, and basically all of Europe. I also cannot imagine the Indians are going to cry if China gets taken down a few notches. So at that point, who exactly is the rest of the world and what naval power do they have? Basically you are assuming that Russia would go to war if the U.S. blocked its oil deliveries - I guess maybe, but it is going to have to risk its best platforms for China and risk an Article 5 declaration while it’s doing it.

Edited February 18, 2024 by Josh

[Josh]

13 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The Chinese are a culturally and racially homogenous country.  The United States is a mismosh patchwork of hundreds of cultures and spoiled and entitled squabbling factions, its barely even now able to hold its domestic union together.  I think that the US domestic unity under wartime stress will disintegrate far more quickly than the China's will.

I’ll note the U.S. has no problem unifying after 9-11. I’ll also note Zero Covid ended abruptly after public protests. If the Chinese kill a bunch of US sailors, it is extremely hard to imagine that the already heavily bipartisan anti China sentiment would not crystallize into a sustained war effort, IMO.

 

13 hours ago, glenn239 said:

On the food front, on the googling I did this morning, I think they (China) spends about 1.1 trillion a year on food domestically, plus another .125 trillion in imports (after deducting exports).  I think if the US starts going after Chinese fishing boats, or whatever other means you are suggesting, that the Chinese can make up the difference by importing more food from India (reexported from 3rd parties) and Russia.

im suggesting a far blockade. Local fishing would be possible but long range fishing fleets could not operate and food imports would be limited to over land. No one would starve, but food prices would go up.

 

13 hours ago, glenn239 said:

In terms of the fishing boats, and the USN hunting these, have you actually even looked at the problem?  The Chinese have over 500,000 fishing boats.  Do understand that these can and will be armed with anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles.  They can also disguise themselves to resemble the other 3,500,000 fishing boats in the world, such that US aircraft, helicopters and ships trying to stop and search fishing boats could wind up being destroyed.

 

Local fishing would still happen in a far blockade scenario - I’m talking about the U.S. and its allies blocking exit from the second island chain west and transit out of the SCS. Chinese deep water fishing fleets however routinely travel the world an operate in the EECs of countries on other continents. That type of fishing would no longer be available in a blockade situation.

[glenn239]

11 hours ago, Josh said:

Physically no one is going to starve to death. The same is true in the U.S.; if Walmart shelves are empty, life can go on. But the populations of both countries are going to be less comfortable, and since China’s dependencies are more basic (food, energy) and its GDP is more dependent on exports, I think if anything the Chinese get the slightly worse end of the deal.

Looks to me we agree a blockade strategy is likely to fail.  So why is it being discussed as an option?  

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As for the U.S. going to war with the whole world, that is not what a blockade actually is and more over from a naval perspective, it would not be overly challenging to actually go to war against “the whole world “ if you exclude US Allie’s like Japan, Australia, Korea, and basically all of Europe.

If a neutral flagged tanker is going to a port in China, blockading forces would have to board it and take it over, which is an act of war.

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I also cannot imagine the Indians are going to cry if China gets taken down a few notches.

I've dealt with businessmen from the sub-continent.  They are very serious about making money, very commercially focused, and a US blockade of China would be a huge opportunity for Indian middlemen to make tens of billions.  Easy money too.  Buy the oil from the Saudis, get it to China, charge a big markup over cost.

In terms of Sino-Indian relations, one fact from the Chinese  stance is that they are able to make concessions if and when necessary, because they've carved out a host of issues where they have made room to make concessions, if necessary.

 

Edited February 18, 2024 by glenn239

[glenn239]

11 hours ago, Josh said:

I’ll note the U.S. has no problem unifying after 9-11. I’ll also note Zero Covid ended abruptly after public protests. If the Chinese kill a bunch of US sailors, it is extremely hard to imagine that the already heavily bipartisan anti China sentiment would not crystallize into a sustained war effort, IMO.

The US public has little tolerance for privation at home to support foreign adventures of questionable utility.  The Chinese would be tightening their belts on account of their local, basic, security.  

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im suggesting a far blockade. Local fishing would be possible but long range fishing fleets could not operate and food imports would be limited to over land. No one would starve, but food prices would go up.

I think a fishing blockade would be very difficult to implement for a variety of reasons, including the size of the Chinese fleet, how dangerous even a small fishing boat can be because of modern weapons, and the capacity of neutral fishing fleets to sell their products to China.

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 I’m talking about the U.S. and its allies blocking exit from the second island chain west and transit out of the SCS.

 

You mean a warship blockade?  I doubt that will work.  The ships would have to reveal their exact coordinates every time they stop a civilian vessel, meaning that a dozen or more times per day, they are giving the Chinese a weapons grade track on a blockading warship.

[RETAC21]

Glenn being clueless will miss this, but Ozzie SSN time on station vs its main client:

[Strannik]

Apparently Canberra does not want to precommit to go to war with China on the US whim, while US wants it to be a precondition for the subs.

The AUKUS deal may not pan out.

 

Edited February 18, 2024 by Strannik

[Josh]

7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Looks to me we agree a blockade strategy is likely to fail.  So why is it being discussed as an option?

I think it would fail to change PRC policy in the short term. But I expect it never the less would be the normal as a long term containment policy, much as the Russian sanctions and tech import bans do not really force Moscow’s hand but are like a CB permanent condition as a containment effort regardless of the outcome of the war. The U.S. would lose trade with the west pac; China would lose trade with everyone outside of it. That would be a new enduring geopolitical reality.

 

7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

If a neutral flagged tanker is going to a port in China, blockading forces would have to board it and take it over, which is an act of war.

Same-same for China and any ships steaming for Taiwan. Do you think that will stop them? Do you think the U.S. will not reciprocate?
 

7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I've dealt with businessmen from the sub-continent.  They are very serious about making money, very commercially focused, and a US blockade of China would be a huge opportunity for Indian middlemen to make tens of billions.  Easy money too.  Buy the oil from the Saudis, get it to China, charge a big markup over cost.

Perhaps, but I doubt they will be given the opportunity to do so regardless of what position their government takes. See above.

 

7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

In terms of Sino-Indian relations, one fact from the Chinese  stance is that they are able to make concessions if and when necessary, because they've carved out a host of issues where they have made room to make concessions, if necessary.

 

Perhaps, but I do not think the U.S. will allow for such and India is not really in a position to contest that even if it had a mind too.

[Josh]

8 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The US public has little tolerance for privation at home to support foreign adventures of questionable utility.  The Chinese would be tightening their belts on account of their local, basic, security.

historically the U.S. has a sharp temper when it’s forces are engaged first. In any case, a Sino-American war is likely to be so devastating that all we are really discussing is what the long term end state will be after both sides have spent several Weeks eviscerating each others surface fleets in the region. Short of a senate removal, which has never happened, a U.S. president can pretty much run the war they want.

 

8 hours ago, glenn239 said:

I think a fishing blockade would be very difficult to implement for a variety of reasons, including the size of the Chinese fleet, how dangerous even a small fishing boat can be because of modern weapons, and the capacity of neutral fishing fleets to sell their products to China.

I think restricting PRC merchant traffic outside the SCS and second island chain would be pretty easy - if ships are simply impounded or sunk after being boarded, then I think traffic drops off pretty quickly.

 

8 hours ago, glenn239 said:

 

You mean a warship blockade?  I doubt that will work.  The ships would have to reveal their exact coordinates every time they stop a civilian vessel, meaning that a dozen or more times per day, they are giving the Chinese a weapons grade track on a blockading warship.

I’m assuming the PLAN, to the extent it still exists, has other things to do closer to home. Also it doesn’t seem overly hard for a warship to suppress all low power communications in the local area given the power generation involved. I doubt any civilian navigation or communications work within the horizon of a Burke if it feels like it.

 

ETA: I have no doubt a type 52/55 destroyers also can smother any local transmissions as well; a warship with megawatt power levels and broad spectrum frequency agile antennas can pretty easily own small vessels not specifically designed to deal with an electronically stressed environment.

Edited February 19, 2024 by Josh

[glenn239]

20 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

Glenn being clueless will miss this, but Ozzie SSN time on station vs its main client:

Using SSN's to stop and inspect fishing boats?   

Edited February 19, 2024 by glenn239

[glenn239]

16 hours ago, Josh said:

I think it would fail to change PRC policy in the short term. But I expect it never the less would be the normal as a long term containment policy, much as the Russian sanctions and tech import bans do not really force Moscow’s hand but are like a CB permanent condition as a containment effort regardless of the outcome of the war. The U.S. would lose trade with the west pac; China would lose trade with everyone outside of it. That would be a new enduring geopolitical reality.

The USN does not have the strength or the endurance to carry out the mission you are describing.  The attrition will be constant, the allies will start to fade away, and after a year or so the USN will have dwindled in strength to the point where it cannot exercise a blockade.  The entire thing will collapse and China will resume world trade.

Quote

Same-same for China and any ships steaming for Taiwan. Do you think that will stop them? Do you think the U.S. will not reciprocate?

Taiwan is not a legally recognized country, while China is.  Taiwan's world trade is relatively unimportant to the world, while China's is crucial to hundreds of countries.  The legal and economic differences make the two cases impossible to equalize.

Quote

Perhaps, but I do not think the U.S. will allow for such and India is not really in a position to contest that even if it had a mind too.

The more countries that the USN fights, the faster the USN is at war with multiple opponents and the faster entire blockade collapses. The more countries that the US will have as enemies for decades afterwards.  And the Chinese will still take Taiwan.  

Edited February 19, 2024 by glenn239

[RETAC21]

2 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Using SSN's to stop and inspect fishing boats?   

Fishing boats without fuel?

[Perun]

On 2/18/2024 at 9:01 PM, RETAC21 said:

Glenn being clueless will miss this, but Ozzie SSN time on station vs its main client:

what is the source of this map

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Perun said:

what is the source of this map

The source in the map is Freemantle.  There's a lesson in that for RETAC21 if he stops and thinks about it.

Edited February 19, 2024 by glenn239

[Josh]

11 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The USN does not have the strength or the endurance to carry out the mission you are describing.  The attrition will be constant, the allies will start to fade away, and after a year or so the USN will have dwindled in strength to the point where it cannot exercise a blockade.  The entire thing will collapse and China will resume world trade.

China’s ability to strike USN units operating near the straights around Indonesia is not that great, even if we assume they won the war. Their ability to operate in the Indian Ocean or west of the second island chain is negligible. If we assume that both sides are vulnerable to anti ship missiles, then it stands to reason the side with the dramatically more capable bomber and SSN fleet will easily be able to contain the other.

Edited February 20, 2024 by Josh

[Josh]

11 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Taiwan is not a legally recognized country, while China is.  Taiwan's world trade is relatively unimportant to the world, while China's is crucial to hundreds of countries.  The legal and economic differences make the two cases impossible to equalize.

The first thing that happens in a war over Taiwan is that Taiwan is recognized by the U.S. as the independent country it factually is. It seems likely a significant number of its allies would follow suit. Also you keep avoiding the fact that Taiwanese trade with the world is in fact crucial given how pivotal their major export (microchips) are to everyone and everything, including to China.

 

The modern global economy falls apart if Taiwan’s industries are destroyed - true or false?

[Josh]

11 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The more countries that the USN fights, the faster the USN is at war with multiple opponents and the faster entire blockade collapses. The more countries that the US will have as enemies for decades afterwards.  And the Chinese will still take Taiwan.  

The political and economic ramifications of China throwing the world into a global depression and the U.S. enacting a far blockade of China would be hard to predict, but a military defeat of the USN in the IO, Mediterranean, Atlantic, or even eastern pacific are unlikely outcomes. Who exactly is going to challenge them in any of these domains? You say “countries “. Who? With what?

But for China to even get into that dodgy situation, it would have to complete what is unarguably the single greatest amphibious operation of all time. Otherwise it just loses the great power competition promptly and irrevocably. There would not be a second opportunity or capability. The most recent public wargame set in 2026 generally removes the surface forces of 7th fleet and PLAN inside three weeks in most all of its scenarios/iterations. It is hard to imagine that an operation completely dependent on surface ships, and very flammable, unarmed surface ships at that, could possibly be successful given all the trends in anti ship capabilities.

[Josh]

4 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The source in the map is Freemantle.  There's a lesson in that for RETAC21 if he stops and thinks about it.

i am unfamiliar with the source, but the map does display quite well how easy it is to isolate the Indian Ocean from the Pacific with just four choke points that are dozens of miles wide.

[glenn239]

13 hours ago, Josh said:

i am unfamiliar with the source, but the map does display quite well how easy it is to isolate the Indian Ocean from the Pacific with just four choke points that are dozens of miles wide.

The map indicates that the blockaded country monitors fleet bases 24/7 until the SSN's pull in to reload, then they put a hypersonic missile through its reactor core.

Edited February 20, 2024 by glenn239

[glenn239]

13 hours ago, Josh said:

China’s ability to strike USN units operating near the straights around Indonesia is not that great, even if we assume they won the war. Their ability to operate in the Indian Ocean or west of the second island chain is negligible.

The range of a DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile with conventional warhead is 3,100nm, while the DF21 has a range of 1100nm  Any US warship stopping a neutral ship in the Straights of Malacca is therefore within hypersonic missile range of China.  Because the ship has to stop the neutral, the PLA(N) will know the identity of the US warship and its precise location, meaning that within minutes of the freighter making contact, the DF-21 or DF-26 battery has been cued and is ready to fire.   If the warship tries to remain over the horizon and use a helicopter, then that still puts a box around the possible location of the warship, even assuming the boarding party is simply not disarmed and captured by soldiers aboard the ship.

In order to cover supply ships in the Middle East, the Chinese would move other DF-21 and DF-26 batteries to Iran and Pakistan, and this would provide lethal coverage for shipping routes all through the Indian Ocean.  Other countries in Africa could host other batteries to extend the umbrella to the Atlantic, then other countries in South America could do so in order to cover these seas, as well as to pulverize US warships in port in the Americas. 

So no, I doubt think the USN can just place its surface fleet in hypersonic ballistic missile range of half of Asia and then start stopping random ships for inspection.  SSN's cannot stop and inspect ships.  They are too vulnerable.  The only option for the USN would be to start sinking freighters without warning, but tankers are tough birds because their cargos keep them afloat, and the mass oil spills you are talking about would be an environmental catastrophe that would have the Left in the West livid at their own navy.  So now we're getting into the USN at war with the whole world, which is insane.  And even this scenario does not account for the 500,000 Chinese fishing vessels, tens of thousands of which are now heavily armed with anti-ship weapons and drones and are plying the world's oceans to sink any NATO ship they encounter on site. 

I think we could do well stop discussing this scenario now, as the difficulties look unsurmountable.  It looks impracticable and unworkable, and the only use of it would be as a study as to why military cultures can collectively go down a rabbit hole rather than confront and depose leadership that is increasingly irrational.  

Edited February 20, 2024 by glenn239

[Roman Alymov]

28 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

The range of a DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile with conventional warhead is 3,100nm, while the DF21 has a range of 1100nm  Any US warship stopping a neutral ship in the Straights of Malacca is therefore within hypersonic missile range of China.  Because the ship has to stop the neutral, the PLA(N) will know the identity of the US warship and its precise location, meaning that within minutes of the freighter making contact, the DF-21 or DF-26 battery has been cued and is ready to fire.   If the warship tries to remain over the horizon and use a helicopter, then that still puts a box around the possible location of the warship, even assuming the boarding party is simply not disarmed and captured by soldiers aboard the ship.

 

I'm sorry but what is the need for US&Co to stop ships at high seas at all? All they need is customs officials/representatives in major ports, plus may be key places like Gibraltar, Suets, Panama - and thst is all, they could arrest any ship that have visited Chineese port or was carrying goods to/from China or have traveled for some time with its tracking system off - and thst is it, China is blocked. Invent any reasons - new rettible virus, gay rights, envirionment, anything goes as media will provide right coverage. Add to that conditional surrender of Russia ("collective Putin" is begging for it)  - resulting in land routes also blocked..... China could launch all missiles they would like, it will change nothing.