China over rated as a power ?

[XT]

From Gorsnak

You’re assuming that $$$ = $$$. But this is not the case. For x dollars, the US army supports one infantrymen. But for x dollars, the Chinese army supports, what, 5 infantrymen? 10? More than one, anyways. The purchasing power of the 47 billion the Chinese are spending is way, way higher than the purchasing power of the first 47 billion in the US military budget. This is not, of course, to suggest that the Chinese are spending anywhere near enough to catch up to the US military machine. However, the Chinese would not have to spend nearly as much as you suggest to narrow the gap. Closing the gap entirely, though, is probably next to impossible for the next couple decades at least.

Are you claiming that a US infantryman (or tank driver or pilot, etc etc) is comparable to a Chinese whatever on a 1 for 1 basis? Or even a 1 for 10? Sure, they can buy a jet for (just an random example, not a real figure) $1 million where it costs the US $20 million. However, if our one jet can shoot down all 20 of theirs, what did it get them? Sure, they can buy a tank for, say 1/3 the cost of one of ours, and their soldiers cost, I don’t know, 1/5 maybe, but if our one tank can kill 20 or more of their, what good is it? Not only is the quality of the weapon they are buying not as good, but the training of that soldier is not as good either. This would lead to a staggeringly lopsided kill ratio…towards the side with the quality and the training. Like in Korea.

My understanding of the Korean War (using this as an example, even though I think a case could be made that the US is FURTHER ahead of China today than it was then…but we’ll say its comparable just for the sake of arguement) was that the air craft to air craft kill ratio was something like 25 to 1 (this is a rough guess from memory). The Chinese lost somewhere between 1 million and 2 million men (again, rough guess), fighthing just the US, were the US lost, what? 50k? Fighthing both China AND North Korea. I don’t care HOW much money that $49 billion buys the Chinese…its still lower quality crap atm, just a lot of quantity.

WHEN the Chinese are buying a comparable quality to the US (and training to the US standards) it will end up costing them a similar price tag. When their tanks are up to our present standards they’ll cost…well, close to what ours do. When their jets are up to our standards, the same. When their training is as rigorous as our, its gona cost them dear (if you looked at some of the links, training is one of the big ticket items in our budget). I don’t see how the Chinese can close the gap at all, without buying the same quality and training to the same standard…which means paying a comparable amount. All they are getting is quantity…and if we’ve seen nothing else in the last 10 or so years, its that quality beats quantity fairly easily.

I think the Chinese would have to spend staggering amounts (well over the $390 billion the US spends anually) just to come close. After all, the US has been spending comparable amounts (say in the neighborhood of $300 million anually) for decades. Not only is our equipment superior, our training is superior as well…and getting better and better every year. After all, we’ve been at this for a fairly long time, no?

As long as we keep spending those ungodly summs, no one is going to close the gap with us, unless they are willing to spend comparable amounts, buy and research the high level of quality, and train to the level that we do. Its just not going to happen IMO. And personally, I doubt the Chinese will be stupid enough to even bother to play that game, when they, like the Europeans, can spend their money more wisely on other things.

-XT

[Rashak_Mani]

Well that was my point about the US being spread out… the US spends X dollars… but those dollars are spread out over Korea, Japan, Europe, Balkans, Middle East, Mediterranean, “homeland” and the Pacific. Every dollar the Chinese invest is Asia only.

Also their economy might get a boost if the produce their own weapons. Still your assumption that a prosperous China = a more open china = less military is proved wrong by the US itself… a open society that keeps a huge military.

I think the weak point of China is corruption, party politics and a tendency to censor and control too much. If things don’t change a lot… I think their economy will be big but nothing much in the future. They might get a lot of military power… but not enough economics behind it.

[adaher]

Your only discounting the fact that more people are suspicious of the US now than ever… the “benign” giant no more. Some rearmament by europeans and asians should happen… especially if Bush “wins” again.

There’s a lot of talk, but Europe is still cutting its defense spending. Besides, no sane person thinks the US will ever attack Europe. You may not like our willingness to use force so quickly, but we only use it against dictators who almost everyone agrees is scum.

**Also their economy might get a boost if the produce their own weapons. Still your assumption that a prosperous China = a more open china = less military is proved wrong by the US itself… a open society that keeps a huge military.

**

Because we are defending so many other nations that don’t have to spend money on their own defense. Our defense spending is more like foreign aid. China is building their military mainly for their own purposes. They have no true allies. That is part of the reason they are so interested in building a big mliitary. They are surrounded by potential enemies. Any war involving China could force CHina to fight on as many as five fronts. That huge army starts to look pretty small when having to defend that many fronts.

[Gorsnak]

*Originally posted by xtisme *
Are you claiming that a US infantryman (or tank driver or pilot, etc etc) is comparable to a Chinese whatever on a 1 for 1 basis? Or even a 1 for 10?

One on one I’d say the only real advantage a US infantryman has over his Chinese counterpart is the funky night vision goggles. As a group, US infantry also probably has better training, tactics, and logistic support. But you mentioned one on one. Anyways, the point isn’t that the Chinese can acquire large quantities of stuff. The point is merely that purchasing power parity has to be taken into account when comparing military budgets. Take an area where there is technical parity, say, assault rifles. The M16 has no advantage over the Kalashnikov knockoff the Chinese use. Indeed, arguably the AK is a better rifle under battle conditions, as it continues to fire even when horribly abused. And the Chinese can produce them and the ammunition for them much cheaper than the US can produce M16s due to the disparity in purchasing power. A dollar in China buys more than a dollar in the US. This is economics, not military doctrine.

[adaher]

In 1951 one US soldier was as good as 20 Chinese soldiers if casualties are any judge.

I would imagine the gap is ever greater today, perhaps 100 to 1.

[Gorsnak]

You are comparing military systems when you speak of casualty ratios, not individual soldiers.

And you are still ignoring the economics point, which has nothing whatsoever to do with this quality over quantity stuff. It merely has to do with the differences in the local cost of goods and services between the US and China.

[SenorBeef]

*Originally posted by Rashak Mani *
**
See Iraq for example… it required roughly half the US army to accomplish quickly… but its still too big a slice of the army.
**

Did it? I thought the 3rd ID did most of the work, with support from the 101st and 82nd as well as special operations. That’s nowhere near half.

[SenorBeef]

Regarding China’s navy, even if the US stood completely still, and, say, magically, had the exact same equipment and ships in 30 years, it’s extremely unlikely China would be able to compete with us, both in numbers of forces or technologically. Factor in that we’d be advancing in that time frame, and there’s no way, short of spending half the national budget, they’re going to catch up.

Their own in-house jet fighters, for example, are barely a match for our late 60s equipment. They’d have to catch up to our modern equipment, which is quite a feat, and then catch up to whatever equipment we had at a time. Unlikely.

Regarding whether or not China would even try to compete with the US militarily, I doubt it. The USSR had a reason - they were deathly afraid of another invasion. WW2 had grevously wounded them as a nation. As much as the common perception of the cold war suggests the Russians were just mean bastards getting ready to invade Europe for no reason, they really were all about protecting themselves after nearly being wiped out as a nation.

China has no such concern.

[Rashak_Mani]

hhmm… do you remember that China was invaded before the URSS was ? That Japan used them as bio weapons guinea pigs ? That in the 19th-20th centure the Europeans basically abused China endlessly for their own commercial advantages and forced them into humiliating treaties.

China is way more paranoid than the URSS about their neighbors… and has had shooting conflicts with India and the URSS in the past.

SenorBeef… there are 150k+ US troops in Iraq. The divisions you mentioned were the “combat edge” of a much bigger military deployement. Unless you wanna say the supply and support guys are useless…

[Tamerlane]

Just a minor historical nitpick…

*Originally posted by xtisme *

My understanding of the Korean War (using this as an example, even though I think a case could be made that the US is FURTHER ahead of China today than it was then…but we’ll say its comparable just for the sake of arguement) was that the air craft to air craft kill ratio was something like 25 to 1 (this is a rough guess from memory).

Not nearly that high, though numbers are certainly disputed. I’ve seen figures closer to 4:1 - 6:1, which is still excellent ( the communist pilots had some real disadvantages - the North Koreans and Chinese were sketchily and hastily trained, the Russians apparently were stuck in six-week rotations that limited their theatre experience ). Early in the war, before the entry of the MiG-15, the NK air force was also badly outclassed equipment wise.

The Chinese lost somewhere between 1 million and 2 million men (again, rough guess), fighthing just the US, were the US lost, what? 50k? Fighthing both China AND North Korea.

For some reason folks always forget South Korea. By the end of the war they had 16 divisions on the ground and were manning 3/4 of the front. On the approach to the Yalu in 1950 they comprised over half of the UN forces ( 224,000 vs. 153,000 American and 20,000 international troops ).

Estimates of casualties vary from ~1 million UN (mostly SK ) vs ~1.8 million Communist ( NK and Chinese ), to ~550,000 UN vs 1.5 million Communist. Again a pretty good ratio, regardless how you add it up, but not quite so enormously one-sided as you suggest.

In 1951 one US soldier was as good as 20 Chinese soldiers if casualties are any judge.

Seemingly.

Then again, it is worth remembering that despite the 1rst Marine Division’s heroics at Chosin, the Chinese pretty well handed the UN forces their asses in 1950, despite being heavily outgunned in terms of heavy ordinance. Just goes to show that one should never underestimate even an unsophisticated foe.

• Tamerlane

[Rashak_Mani]

Plus a dead american is a dead american no matter how many chinamen he kills…

[sailor]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3199772.stm

China’s annual growth rate has topped 9% - fuelling concern its economy could be overheating. The figures - from the State Statistical Bureau - were at the high end of analysts’ expectations. And are in stark contrast to growth rates in the rest of the industrialised world, which are between zero and 3%.
. . .
China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) went up by 9.1% in the 12 months to the end of September, the figures showed.
. . .
China’s September factory output surged 16.3% from a year earlier. The boom was driven by industries such as automobiles, metals, computers and machinery.

China has been having espectacular growth for a couple of decades.

[Roland_Saul]

Isn’t it an old military adage that says something like “Whoever can put the most guys on the ground will eventually win that ground.”?

I know that to properly conquer any place, you have to have warm bodies on the ground, in the streets, and door to door/roof to roof, and superior firepower is not the exclusive domain of North America. We’d like to believe that our technology has been and still is superior to any enemy, and that our science is ahead of theirs, but you can’t forget that China could theoretically put 250 million soldiers into battle.

That number, when seen as close quarters urban warfare, as military conquest (or defence) inevitably evolves into, puts a big scare into me when I think simply of attrition. Remember Custer? He was better armed per man, and better trained per man, and had “God on his side”. Look what happened to him.

[SenorBeef]

*Originally posted by Rashak Mani *
**hhmm… do you remember that China was invaded before the URSS was ? That Japan used them as bio weapons guinea pigs ? That in the 19th-20th centure the Europeans basically abused China endlessly for their own commercial advantages and forced them into humiliating treaties.

China is way more paranoid than the URSS about their neighbors… and has had shooting conflicts with India and the URSS in the past.

**

Hmm, that’s true. I shouldn’t have said China has nothing to compel it to build up like the USSR, but the desire is/was still not as strong. Post war Japan was nowhere near as strong as post war Europe.

But the USSR build up started right after WW2 - we’re talking about China making a buildup now, 60 years later, where the same imperative simply isn’t there - modern Japan isn’t any sort of threat, and India… I don’t think they have to fear the annihilation of their country from them.

**

SenorBeef… there are 150k+ US troops in Iraq. The divisions you mentioned were the “combat edge” of a much bigger military deployement. Unless you wanna say the supply and support guys are useless… **

Well, how many took part in the actual invasion? I think more troops got deployed there for the occupation - er, liberation, whatever - than were actually used to destroy the Iraqi military.

[NeSBiT]

Those vast numbers of chinese infantry don’t mean a damn thing when China doesn’t have the ability to deploy them anywhere that’s too far from China. The U.S.'s air superiority shouldn’t be overlooked, after crushing the Chinese air force they would proceed to bomb the hell out of their infrastructure. Oh, and meanwhile the U.S. Navy would be launching Tomahawks.

Of course, all of that is moot since the U.S. could always use subs to deliver nukes in less than ten minutes.

[DreadCthulhu]

*Originally posted by Roland Saul *
**
Remember Custer? He was better armed per man, and better trained per man, and had “God on his side”. Look what happened to him. **

Minor Nitpick: IIRC, most of Custer’s men were armed with single shot breach loading 1873 Springfields, while many of the Indians had the faster firing Winchester lever action rifles.

[Rashak_Mani]

*Originally posted by SenorBeef *
**** But the USSR build up started right after WW2 - we’re talking about China making a buildup now, 60 years later, where the same imperative simply isn’t there - modern Japan isn’t any sort of threat, and India… I don’t think they have to fear the annihilation of their country from them.

Well, how many took part in the actual invasion? I think more troops got deployed there for the occupation - er, liberation, whatever - than were actually used to destroy the Iraqi military. **

Firstly China always maintaned a high level of military... their better economy now is highlighting a growing military trend towards qualitative growth in their armed forces. URSS overshadowed them due to Cold War tensions and the fact that they had way much more nukes and hardware than China. China has more money and is adapting to new "realities"...

 Besides China and US... are their any big countries increasing their military spending ? I think not. So the point is not defense... either US or China... but imposing thru military superiority their national policies. Taiwan might be a strong issue... but its hardly "defensive".

 As for the number of troops invading... its not the matter... its how many the US has in the Middle East on account of the invasion. The US army has always had a huge "supply tail". Its ridiculous how big it is... but I figure its how they manage to keep "gas" guzzling M1 Abrams and Air superiority. More troops were not sent or not much more were sent for "peacekeeping".... that I remember.

Of course, all of that is moot since the U.S. could always use subs to deliver nukes in less than ten minutes.

China has nukes too... and the means to deliver + a pretty big submarine force. Its not a pushover...

[scotandrsn]

*Originally posted by adaher *
**Any Chinese attempt to build a blue water navy will spark an arms race China can’t win. Russia, Japan, Australia, the US, India, and Taiwan would all start a frenzy of building to counter a Chinese naval buildup. And all of them have superior navies already so they have a head start.

China’s system cannot handle an arms race with the democracies. They’d fall over eventually just like the Soviet Union did. **

The Soviet Union was done in by the arms race because their manufacturing base was substandard.

China is the currently the world’s factory. They have all the physical capital they need.

Your emphasis on economy is not well thought out. The USSR’s economy was never good, but it certainly was a superpower. The US could only be considered a superpower after World War II, due to the incredible military buildup that took place. This buildup was started in our own economic doldrums.

I maintain that the only distinction to be drawn between today’s China, the US and the USSR is that China lacks an outwardly stated imperialist push, at least compared with the other two.

Rashak Mani, yes we could go on arguing the definition of a superpower all day, which is exactly the implication of the OP. If you have no agreed upon definition of the class, how can you possibly determine whether or not China is a member.

In my sense of things, a superpower is one with the ability to implement its will almost anywhere in the world at almost any time. Actually doing it on a regular basis has no bearing on the ability to do so.

The fact that China lacks the outward bravado of Cold War Russia does not mean they can not operate as a superpower, only that they have not decided to do so up to now.

Or have they? Their first “taikonaut” is currently orbiting the earth.

[sailor]

The USA already depends on China more than many people would think China has rebuffed demands from the United States to revalue its currency in order to relieve pressure on the American economy.

[NeSBiT]

*Originally posted by Rashak Mani *
**
China has nukes too… and the means to deliver + a pretty big submarine force. Its not a pushover… **

Nukes, yes. A pretty big sub force? No. Here.

One ballistic sub isn’t really a pretty big submarine force. Granted that info is from 2000 but I don’t think they could have produced many more in so short a time. China also only has one type of ICBM, I couldn’t find info on it’s range,accuracy, speed of delivery, or how many they had. But the US has faster, more accurate missiles and we have a lot of them. Plus a fleet of ballistic subs, nukes on surface ships (tomahawks), and bombers with sufficient range.