Chinese Plans for the Extermination of America.

[Killfile]

Chinese movement of massive amounts of the population would be both visible and obvious. This is the kind of thing we have spy sats for.

2,530 nuclear warheads is about what we have on submarines. In total the United States nuclear arsenal numbered some 30,000 warheads at the height of the cold war.

You have a very simplistic and somewhat over-dramatized view of how nuclear strategy and nuclear diplomacy works. A nuclear war between the US and China would be an end of the world scenario. Even though the Chinese command structure could survive for some time underground, their eventual extermination would be all but assured thanks to secondary affects (radiation, climactic change, etc).

Provision requirements would easily prevent the maintenance of any large chunk of the population. I doubt we need to worry about a "mine shaft gap" with the Chinese.

Chinese deployments like the one you mention above are designed to protect the missiles and their launch personal, not the population at large. They protect China's nuclear deterrent. China's reliance on these systems demonstrates the comparatively primitive nature of their nuclear deployment, as submarines are infinitely preferable as a deterrent weapon.

Please don't lecture me on the cold war. I'm abundantly aware of Chinese aspects of the Cold War, from Mao to Kissinger and everything in between.

[Southpaw]

What I gather from your posts is that you think for some reason that our American deterrent forces will keep the Chinese from initiating a nuclear war. You point out that their position is, in the long run, untenable in a nuclear conflict. Now somehow I must have left out that the point isn't that no one wins so much as that the CCP thinks it can and secondly even if it cannot it has absolutely zero problem with the end of the world.

The party officials are realizing that they will not be able to maintain their grip on Chinese society for long and they would like to think they can win a non-conventional war with the U.S. but they also will accept annihilation before loss of power.

[isse-pisse-päron-pung]

This must be propaganda yes?

Frankly speaking since Bush hasn't been popular at all so bush just want to let people out of focus concerning domestic problems.

but hey what do I know

[Skullkracker]

you may very well be right

[Killfile]

I assume that our deterrent forces will keep China from choosing a nuclear attack because they proved equal to this role with the Soviets, who where decidedly more interested in seeing DC reduced to a smoking crater.

While China may think (rightly or wrongly) that it could win a conventional war with the US, it will not attempt to do so because either outcome results in a nuclear exchange.

China's missile forces, while more than equal to surviving long enough to provide a deterrent in the event of a nuclear attack on China, are not sufficient to knock out a 2nd strike from the United States, nor are they sufficient to emerge a victor from a blow for blow exchange with either the US or Russia.

In other words, China is safe where she is. The maintenance of the status quo is in the country's best interests.

I don't think that the Chinese government, no matter how untenable they believe their position to be, will knowingly send China into a war she can not win rather than relinquish power.

The Soviet Politburo didn't do it, why would we assume China would?

This isn't some half baked idea of mine, it's a natural outgrowth of Rational Actor Theory, the foundation upon which all of US nuclear doctrine, the concept of MAD, and the rational behind our strategic deployment for the last 60 years has been built.

What you're suggesting is that China is run by mad-men and can not be deterred because they would rather see their country destroyed than live in a world where they don't have the most powerful military in the world.

If that were the case, I have to ask -- why aren't they shelling Taiwan right now?

[panasonic]

obviously a war like that will be unprofitable to both parties no matter who wins. china will lose one of its biggest markets and vice versa for other ppl. besides, a nuclear winter aint exactly very nice for the world. and if the chinese wants to start a war, they would most likely destroy taiwan or japan, each with their own respective gains. revenge etc. for japan and taiwan for most likely some sort of nationalist pride

[Southpaw]

Just because the Politburo saw that they had no sensible way to maintain power and chose to step down peacefully in no way means that the Chinese will. The Chinese just view things differently than we (the west) do to the extent where I think for them a voluntary step down from power is unacceptable and that while not their first choice Nuclear warfare is an acceptable option to them. I think that they will follow any course of action to preserve their power to keep face for themselves and their party.

Btw, I realize the theory your talking about isn't made up. However I don't believe that doctrine works when your adversary doesn't view and/or value things the same way as you do. Mutually assured destruction will no doubt work on anyone who views the world through a western lens but can you apply it to others when their values on life are different?

As for Taiwan, that will happen in 10 - 20 years when the Chinese finish their current program of military modernization. Besides anyone would be a moron to start trouble with W in office, the man doesn't even need a clear-cut reason to mess with people. Also I guess is that the Chinese really don't have the capability at the moment to carry out opposed amphibious assaults but give 10 - 20 like I said and they will be good to go.

[Killfile]

Do you have some indepth knowledge of Chinese society I should be aware of, or is this based on jingoistic impressions of Chinese sociology?

Fear of death is a pretty universal view. I'd be hard pressed to come up with any culture that would trade the destruction of a country and the deaths of billions for the pride of a few men.

[Wandering_Mystic]

First of all, I think the source of this "information" on what the Chinese are thinking speaks for itself. How can a man like that possibly have contacts with a Chinese official of such a high rank or with access to top secret meetings? It's absurd, and the level of racist hatred present in the transcript can only come from someone like Turner who has little understanding of anything involving responsibility for others on a scale larger than the narrow community he is a part of. The type of racism expressed in the diatribe also does not reflect the kind of racism typically found in Asian countries, in which the racism is generally more an animosity against outsiders being on their land than something more outward driven.

So even without taking into account the whole likelihood of a Chinese attack scenario, it's looking pretty ridiculous to me. As for the scenario itself, Killfile pointed out all the logistics pretty admirably. It doesn't matter if it's a western lens or not, because it all comes down to strategy, for which the Chinese have also been famous for historically. Even crazies are aware of their delicate situation and won't do anything too rash unless they can be assured of security and survival. Being crazy does not mean you are stupid, and the fact is, it would be really, really stupid for a fixed stationary target (i.e. a country) to go all out against the U.S. There is simply no escaping the devastation that would follow, direct or indirect, and it doesn't take much foresight at all to see this.

[panasonic]

a crazy person that high up would have to be genius crazy, as in a genius that can somehow prevent china from getting destroyed while also destroying the US, which is highly unlikely to happen.

a nuclear war is very unproffitable, and no matter if u r capitalist, communist, fascist or whatever, nuclear war will ruin your entire country and economy. there is only a slight difference between the winner and loser in a nuclear war, in that u can say u won

[Southpaw]

@Wandering_Mystic

Of course it's ridiculous. It's a piece of propaganda turned out by one of Turner's writers to get some ratings points. However, I find it an entertaining scenario once you pull some of the utter bullshit that infests those pages particularly the parts that pertain to them having the support of the people, the ability to simultaneously cleanse America with Chemical and/or Biological weapons, etc. I just kind of think of it as what would happen if the old hardliner communists had control of China and feared losing power what might they do. I just kind of try to think as close as possible to what the paper lays out and see how it flows. These kinds of things amuse me to no end. I just like to look at them and see how likely the scenario is followed by if it could even work. Then I typically forget about them.

@Killfile

No not really. I just believe that old guard Chinese communists would find it unacceptable to let Capitalism usurp their Maoist state and they would seek any means to prevent the death of what they worked for and the basis of their power. From a cultural perspective I think that their sense of duty would strengthen their resolve and that they would find the loss of face from a peaceable transition to a Capitalistic economy unacceptable and that alone would be enough to make them consider a nuclear option. This is also in light of the fact that they (the hardliners) would survive the nuclear holocaust and resulting fallout thereof. Nuclear winter doesn’t serve as a deterrent here since the hardliners will almost certainly die of old age before the problem of food even arises.