Navigator wrote:
> However, moving into the heart of China would be beyond
> problematic. Much better to go for a combination of starving China
> and creating internal divisions.
A major complicating factor for China is that there will also be an
internal generational crisis civil war along the South-North fault
line. This was the fault line for the last two civil wars -- the
Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) and Mao's Communist Revolution (1934-49).
When the Sino-Japanese war began in 1937, the Nationalist government
had become sufficiently unpopular that Mao was able to use the "United
Front" program to unite numerous factions in support of his communist
party, while leaving the Nationalists to fight the Japanese. The
result was that the Nationalists were weakened, and Mao won the civil
war in 1949.
There are many reasons besides generational theory to believe that
there will be a new civil war. One is that the number of "mass
incidents" has been increasing exponentially since the 1990s. Another
is the CCP has become increasingly paranoid and desperate about
rebellions from Christians, Buddhists and Muslims. Another is that
it's widely believed that the general public in China is not rebelling
against the CCP is because most Chinese are still well fed, and a
recesion would cause much of the public to turn against the CCP.
The other thing I wonder about is that the population that fled to
Formosa/Taiwan in 1949 was from China's south, and they may not be
sympathetic at all to a CCP invasion of their cousins in Taiwan.
The Nationalists were unpopular during the last civil war, and the CCP
will be unpopular during the next civil war, meaning that it's the
CCP's opponents that might be able to use a "United Front" concept to
unite factions against the CCP. However, there's no doubt that all
Chinese will be united against the Japanese.
Vietnam won the last war against China, and they're certainly prepared
to fight a new war. The Indians lost their last war against China,
but they're certainly prepared to fight. The Taiwanese claim that
they can beat mainland China. The Japanese are more than prepared to
fight China.
In Central Asia, China has made lots of enemies by exterminaing the
Uighurs and Kazakhs. Russia will support much of Central Asia, as it
was part of the Soviet Union, and Putin still thinks they should be
part of the Russian empire.
Pakistan, Cambodia and Laos would be on China's side. Britain would
be on the West's side.
So you were talking in an earlier message about 1982 tanks and 1944
tactics. OK. But with so many of China's neighbors at war with
China, and with China itself in a civil war, at what point would
American tanks be at war with China's tanks, and how would they get
there?