Did you even read your own cite? Here’s the title of the article: US still most powerful air force, China ranks 4th: National Interest. And the sentence right before the one you quoted:
If you think the Chinese Air Force is more modern, you might be interested to know that fully half of the Chinese Air Force’s fighters are still J-7s, a knock-off reverse engineered MiG-21 that entered service at the height of the Cold War in 1965, half of its strike aircraft are Q-5s, a knock-off of the MiG-19 which entered service in 1955(!), and every single one of its bombers is an H-6, a license-built version of the Tu-16 that was developed in 1955 and retired from service in the Former Soviet States in 1993.
Pretty much what Dissonance said…I can go into more detail if you really want, but that’s a good summation. The only thing he didn’t hit on were the Chinese stealth air craft, the J-20 and the J-31 (which isn’t actually a stealth fighter but has some stealth features…in theory). Neither air craft is in production at this point…the earliest I’ve seen is for the J-31 to possibly operational between 2018 and 2020. This is their 5th gen fighter, which Russia will have a comparable fighter to deployed sometime next year (the PAK FA).
The thing is, China has only fairly recently started their own independent development of military hardware. In the past they took basic Russian designs (when they didn’t just buy the things straight from Russia) and either copied them or perhaps made some modifications to them. Much of what they have is pretty dated, even if it was manufactured last year, since the designs themselves are dated. Russia, on the other hand has pretty much been in independent development for decades, even though they had a bit of a down turn on this when the old Soviet Union went tits up. But comparison to the west, neither is really up to scratch when it comes to training, but Russia is by far better trained than most of the Chinese military units, especially air units. And Russia still has institutional experience of how to fight large scale wars (i.e. they know how to do the logistics and move the forces on the battlefield) while China, basically, doesn’t. The only wars they have fought have been pretty close to home and have been blood baths for them, especially logistically. They don’t train for this sort of thing.
So, basically ever factor would be against them in trying to invade Siberia. They don’t have the internal lines of communication to that region of China to do their forward deployments withing being noticed, and they can’t protect them once the shooting starts…not from Russia. They don’t have the training or corporate knowledge that Russia does for this sort of thing. The large majority of their military is crap units using old crap designs that are questionably maintained (corruption in the Chinese military is rampant), and the best most elite units are the ones they use for their own internal security. The Russians have many of these same problems, but they are still better off than the Chinese in these regards and they would be fighting on the defensive for their own territory…something Russians are actually pretty well suited for and probably one of the only things that would get the average Russian fired up enough these days TOO want to fight would be invading their territory.
All of this is totally hypothetical, of course, since China wouldn’t do such a thing for myriad reasons, including the political fallout, the fact that they actually have a fairly good relationship with Russia as a counter balance to the US and the West™, the economic implications…but also because they just don’t have the military to do such an adventure.
I never implied that war was funny nor do I find it funny. People dying anywhere is never funny.
I just meant that the Russian territory being annexed is ironically funny due to the fact that Russia has actually committed such a gross offense in Ukraine.
This debate of who will come out on top between Beijing and Moscow, well I say it remains to be seen. We can put up sources regarding which side has more this or that, but we don’t know for certain.
Sure China’s rise while true does not mean China is a global superpower or that it’s military is the best in the world and is only starting to really design and build it’s own hardware. But still China is a formidable country and can hold it’s own. To say that Russia will simply defeat it in days is nonsense.
[QUOTE=Nema98]
This debate of who will come out on top between Beijing and Moscow, well I say it remains to be seen. We can put up sources regarding which side has more this or that, but we don’t know for certain.
[/QUOTE]
But it’s not a matter of who has more of this and that…it’s a matter of logistics, ability to deploy and support and ability to launch such an operation in the first place. China doesn’t have those things…Russia does in a purely defensive battle in the terrain they’d be fighting in. That’s why I asked you to explain why YOU thought China could do the proposed operation, since I wanted to see what you’d say about it. In the end you are basically doing what others are…which is looking at what the Chinese and Russians have on paper and then comparing them as if they can bring all of that force to bear in some sort of strategy game. It doesn’t work that way. You have to look at where China would stage such an attack from, the potential for them getting to their proposed jump off points without having the Russians notice or being so overwhelming that they wouldn’t care if the Russians notices, and, most importantly, how they would support such an operation after it kicked off. Then compare it to the defensive problem Russia would face in defending against potential attacks, what the terrain would be for the attacker and defender (it would heavily favor the Russians), the potential balance of power wrt air superiority both local and theater (it would favor the Russians), etc etc. Then you’d have to look at the state of those paper forces…who has training and corporate knowledge of large scale armored combat, of combined arms tactics and coordination, of artillery, etc etc…and all of those things heavily favor the Russians in a defensive operation on their own turf and in that terrain and with the really bad tactical and logistics problem such an invasion would pose to China…and one they haven’t really trained all that much for or are really all that well suited for. China’s military is suited to more defensive and local operations, not offensive and fast moving armored warfare or the sort of air campaign this would entail.
No, they aren’t and no they wouldn’t, not in the scenario posed by the OP. They frankly suck at this sort of operation, and they don’t have the training or the force composition for it at this time. The majority of their equipment sucks, their training sucks for the bulk of their forces and the Russians would eat them alive in this terrain and in this type of fight since they DO have the requisite training and the right force mix and temperament. It’s not nonsense at all, unless you are looking at all of this as if they are pieces on a board and that what’s on paper is reality. Heck though, even there Russia is number 3 with a tech edge and bonuses while China is number 4 with a lot of minus 3 gear and tons of curses. If we reversed things and talked about Russia invading China it would be a completely different ball game and there I’d say the Chinese COULD more than hold their own (this is all assuming it didn’t go nuclear…in which case China would lose badly, but Russia would be so hurt that for all practical purposes they would lose as well…and so would everyone else, even those not dragged in).
Don’t really see it this time. China’s population is stable, and they are doing an increasingly good job getting adequately fed (still some malnutrition in parts of the countryside, but the numbers are coming down fast). No-one’s praying for a cull.
Officially, China is very proud of its “melting pot” of ethnic groups (even if, in practice, 99% of places you go are 99.9% Han).
Since once again this is a tiny ethnic minority…I don’t foresee any problem.
No they aren’t. The OP’s link is just an editorial, the Chinese gov’t* isn’t asserting any claim on Siberia. They settled most of their northern border disputes with Russia and Mongolia during the end of the Cold War. Indeed, its pretty much the only border over which the Chinese aren’t involved in some long-running dispute with its neighbours.
*(IIRC, the Taiwanese gov’t still claims Mongolia and Siberia. I think its pretty safe to say they aren’t going to be in a position to assert those claims any time soon, though).
My understanding is that the border issue isn’t completely dead. There were essentially two separate issues. The first was the transfer of large amounts of territory from the Qing Empire to the Russian Empire under the Treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860). The second issue was territory seized by the Soviet Union in the 20th century. These were over small pieces of territory like islands in the middle of a river whose ownership hadn’t been clearly defined by the treaties.
I believe what post-Soviet Russia and China have done is sign agreements on exactly where the border runs. They’ve clarified the treaties that were signed in the 19th century so that there are no longer disputes about precisely what territory China handed over to Russia.
But the bigger dispute still remains. The Chinese government still officially lists the Treaties of Aigun and Peking as unequal treaties that were illegally imposed on China and are therefore not binding. So while there is now an agreement of what territory was lost, China has not officially accepted the loss of that territory.
Interestingly, China has recently floated the idea that Russia’s claim to territory in Ukraine is a legal parallel to China’s claim to territory in Siberia. They appear to be making the argument that since Russia has invoked this principle when it favors them, they might also have to accept it when it’s applied against them.
As for Taiwanese claims, that’s an even more bizarre situation. For reasons of international law - which I admit I don’t follow - the claims for these disputed territories have to go through the Republic of China rather than the People’s Republic of China. If Taipei had a free hand in the issue, it would probably withdraw these claims. As you note, there is no realistic chance Taiwan will ever get the disputed territory back. But Beijing has warned Taipei not to withdraw the claims and that doing so would be one of the unacceptable events that would trigger a forcible reunification (the other two are Taiwan formally declaring its independence or developing nuclear weapons). So Taiwan is essentially being forced to maintain its claims at China’s insistence. It’s China not Taiwan that’s keeping these claims alive.
Arguably that is totally incorrect in my opinion. Both Russia and China are a lot less willing to go to war that the US/Europe (can’t count how many wars the USA has been in recently, Denmark has been in 4-5 big ones and some smaller, since the 90s), and they are a lot more vulnerable to public sentiments when losses start arriving home. But of course in the case of an invasion all hell would break loose.
Europe would side with Russia, since China would be the agressor and Russia is European. But would only act in the form of diplomatic pressure, financial and humanitarian aid, sanctions against China, perhaps some special forces if the conflict dragged out.
Interesting, however if you look at a map of the territory claimed by the Republic of China, it does include Mongolia but it does not include the section including Vladivostok which was once part of the Qing empire. I thought that area was also handed over in an “unequal treaty”.
See this map:
Realpolitik, it wouldn’t be done “for Russia” it would be done to maintain international stability. The international community allowing any country to grab land from another without repercussions would have serious long lasting consequences.
[QUOTE]
Mao’s exact words were: “I’m not afraid of nuclear war. There are 2.7 billion people in the world; it doesn’t matter if some are killed. China has a population of 600 million; even if half of them are killed, there are still 300 million people left. I’m not afraid of anyone.”
[QUOTE]
The logic still holds true; China can absorb a whole lot more casualties than the Russians.
I would expect the American government to be realistic and see that a Chinese government that is willing to invade Russia is a bigger problem than Russia.
Thesearemaps that were published in China or Taiwan. Now I’ll concede I can’t read the Chinese they’re printed in and I don’t know the context. Maybe they’re all just illustrating historical border disputes that have now been resolved. But I have to feel that at least a few Chinese politicians might look at them for inspiration.
Only that’s not logic, that’s ignorant chest-thumping. If half of the population of China were to disappear in mushroom clouds tomorrow, it would mean every major city in China and most of the minor ones were consumed in those mushroom clouds as well. China as a nation or a civilization in any meaningful shape or form would be over. Before you think China has a snowball’s chance in hell at winning a nuclear exchange with Russia, I posted this in another thread in GD just yesterday:
Here is an official map issued by the PRC of the territory they claim. It includes all the disputed islands in the south china sea and all of Taiwan but doesn’t include any of outer manchuria which was once part of the Qing empire, so I guess that for the moment at least, they don’t have any claim to that area.
I was surfing through YouTube and ran across this video which talks (in a funny way) about China’s military. I don’t know anything about the source, but a few of these were things that have already been mentioned in this thread. It’s a 7 minute video, but it’s worth watching IMHO if you are interested in China’s military and why they won’t be grabbing any territory in Siberia any time soon.
If we reversed things and talked about Russia invading China it would be a completely different ball game and there I’d say the Chinese COULD more than hold their own (this is all assuming it didn’t go nuclear…in which case China would lose badly, but Russia would be so hurt that for all practical purposes they would lose as well…and so would everyone else, even those not dragged in).
