South China Sea and Chinese Military Developments - While everyone is distracted by the pandemic, China's aggression in the SCS grows.

[Ivan Shatov]

I doubt Russia would be much interested in going to bat (heh) for China in a shooting war outside of selling them weapons because, ultimately, they're still another geopolitical rival who has been eyeing all those natty resources in Siberia with interest.

It's like 2 Bettas trying to get into each other's bowls.

Even Stalin and Mao could not get along. Marxism had to be sinoized for them to accept it.

China has a gigiantic economy, Russia is about on par with Italy. While they have a lot of resources, it's not like China's buying them. The only reason they would go hot on Russia is to lock the market up for rare Earth metals and fissile materials. China could beat them in the economic game more easily.

 

[teriyakiburns]

China could beat them in the economic game more easily.

Never underestimate the appeal of a big pile of untapped wealth. Siberia is basically a gigantic pile of oil, gold and copper, and China has been salivating over it for the better part of the last fifty years. It's only the combination of distance, russian ordinance and potential shame that has prevented them from taking it.

They've lost face now, and they're going to need resources to continue propping up their internal economy in the face of increasing divestment by the world at large - a process that was already in train before the chinese disease decided to put on a global tour.

We've got the makings of a Tom Clancy novel remake in the works here. Could be interesting. Could be a nothing burger. My money leans towards interesting.

 

[5ever a crab]

They are even phishing for for it:
Racism amid COVID-19 pandemic: The ABC wants to hear your story

http://archive.vn/Fyknz

South Korea, Hong-kong and Japan are (very) pissed at China
North Korea is shooting every Kung-flu leech that's trying to cross the borders
and Taiwan numbah one.

If someone mistakes us for being a mongoloid, I'll just post my Xinnie meme folder as evidence and raise a Taiwan flag on my house. Its piss easy to tell who's Chinese, just show them an average Xi the Pooh pic and if they reeeee, shoot them in the head.
Also its not fucking racist that you can't tell two asians apart. If you showed me a German and French person, I wouldn't be able tell even if they spoke in their native language.

 

[Ivan Shatov]

Never underestimate the appeal of a big pile of untapped wealth. Siberia is basically a gigantic pile of oil, gold and copper, and China has been salivating over it for the better part of the last fifty years. It's only the combination of distance, russian ordinance and potential shame that has prevented them from taking it.

They've lost face now, and they're going to need resources to continue propping up their internal economy in the face of increasing divestment by the world at large - a process that was already in train before the chinese disease decided to put on a global tour.

We've got the makings of a Tom Clancy novel remake in the works here. Could be interesting. Could be a nothing burger. My money leans towards interesting.

Problem with the oil is the cost to extract. It would be on par with NA Shale, which is about $30 a barrel.

Problem with the gold and copper is the mine size. The loads are distributed, they would need to do some mountaintop removal to get at them efficiently.

Don't get me wrong, China's been destroying mountain tops for years. Doing it in Siberia tho... that would be interesting, not sure there's a way to calculate the ROI. There's a reason Russia has never exploited them properly.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I doubt Russia would be much interested in going to bat (heh) for China in a shooting war outside of selling them weapons because, ultimately, they're still another geopolitical rival who has been eyeing all those natty resources in Siberia with interest.

This. China and Russia are not allies and certainly not friends. They find it convenient to team up when it comes to standing up to the US diplomatically but if the shit hit the fan between the USA and China the only thing they would be supporting is an earnest desire for both sides to kill themselves.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Problem with the oil is the cost to extract. It would be on par with NA Shale, which is about $30 a barrel.

Problem with the gold and copper is the mine size. The loads are distributed, they would need to do some mountaintop removal to get at them efficiently.

Don't get me wrong, China's been destroying mountain tops for years. Doing it in Siberia tho... that would be interesting, not sure there's a way to calculate the ROI. There's a reason Russia has never exploited them properly.

The extraction of resources is detail. The important issue is the acquisition and retention of the territory that contains those resources.

Geography plays a big part. From Moscow to Siberia requires crossing a bunch of transverse mountain ranges and rivers to an interior that is poorly explored for that same reason. From Beijing, Siberia is a much easier proposition; you have the mongolian plateau, and then basically a bunch of valleys that lead you straight to the treasure. The only real boundary is the Russian border, which China hasn't tested because they haven't yet had need to test it.

And that speaks to the strategic assessment. Russian strategic doctrine has been west-oriented and reliant on extreme defence in depth since the start of the 20th century. This is because Russia's geography is a series of north-south barriers that allow strategic retreat and organisation, giving the defending force space and time to regroup and reinforce, whilst forcing the western enemy to advance and overstretch. They exploited this effectively against Germany and France - retreating from one line to the next until they had enough memeforces to overrun the enemy's lines - but a canny opponent could exploit it against them, because that doctrine doesn't account for a force driving up from the south to split Russia's defensive lines.

China would be attacking from the south, directly into Siberia, isolating their pacific and arctic fleets, and using the same strategic barriers to deny the Russians that one advantage.

Now, would they be able to hold it? That's a different question. They might be able to hold it lone enough to force a de-facto recognition of their acquisition through the UN. They could use the Russian excuse of liberating oppressed ethnic minorities - a lot of ethnic Chinese have settled eastern Russia already, or have lived there since before it was officially Russian - or they could declare fait acomplis and put Russia into a position of either acquiescing or deploying a nuclear retaliation. That would depend on whether Russia is willing to set nukes in the air. I'm not willing to predict that.

The point is, China is reaching a point of humiliation on the international stage that they would consider as unacceptable, at which point they might decide to choose between contraction from their current economic status and the ongoing loss of face that would entail, or an attempt to retain initiative and salve honour by seizing a large, unexploited natural resource to prop up their internal economy, deny those resources to their competitors, and dominate the international commodities markets with a flood of relatively cheap new raw materials.

This is all speculation.

 

[Julias_Seizure2]

Assuming Corona was done intentionally it would be a brilliant softening up attack before a proper invasion. think about it they have plausible deniability being the first infected and will also recover first. when they recover im expecting them to pull some blitzkrieg shit on whatever countries are weak enough for them to take over without much of a fight.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

I think you mistake genuine incompetence for malice. If this were a Chinese plot it wouldn't have started in the interior near a major metropolitan area. They'd have started it in some border province or indeed AFRICA! The military posturing now is a bluff to project strength in a time of weakness because a major epidemic just hollowed out their country and destabilized their economy. Its a classic survival strategy.

China get's all of their labour from Africa (cheaper than getting their own people to do it). Also, many nations there give China free votes in world affairs due to how much money they pump into the country. They're not going to ruin that.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

They’re moving in to their neighbors

 

[Archeopthryx]

Hong Kong should probably be armed to defend their land.

 

[Too Many Catgirls]

Hong Kong should probably be armed to defend their land.

Hong Kong are pussies :: China is asshoe

 

[Snekposter]

Never underestimate the appeal of a big pile of untapped wealth. Siberia is basically a gigantic pile of oil, gold and copper, and China has been salivating over it for the better part of the last fifty years. It's only the combination of distance, russian ordinance and potential shame that has prevented them from taking it.

They've lost face now, and they're going to need resources to continue propping up their internal economy in the face of increasing divestment by the world at large - a process that was already in train before the chinese disease decided to put on a global tour.

We've got the makings of a Tom Clancy novel remake in the works here. Could be interesting. Could be a nothing burger. My money leans towards interesting.

I posted in another thread that we've been living in Executive Orders for four years now. What's one more Clancy novel? That said, the actual shooting war would be... interesting. I doubt it would go nuclear because if anyone wants to say Beijing doesn't have anything aimed towards Russia, I've got a nice deal on the Brooklyn Bridge for you. It would also rather hilariously upset the current geopolitical order of Russia and China being... mutually opposed to the West, for lack of a better term (because they sure aren't friends) by rather forcibly orienting Russia towards the West as a simple matter of self-defense for them. Russia could easily make some resource concessions in Siberia for the US (or petroleum for Europe) in exchange for aid, all under the guise of "international stability" or some other bullshit that gets a couple CBG's deployed as "peacekeeping" forces with the explicit goal of bombing anything with a Chinese flag that's north of their border. Given the logistical difficulties of maintaining any sort of supply chain in a place like Siberia, it could very easily go from a rapid advance through the valleys to a couple million men starving and freezing to death. Its a gamble the Chinese probably won't do, if only because the potential loss of face there might be worse than any loss of face currently happening.

 

[Too Many Catgirls]

Russia isn't sleeping at the wheel either. I was reading that they joined the cool kids club and have commissioned two helicopter carriers (they're so hot right now) and I would be willing to bet those are going to shore up defense in the far east.

 

[Stoneheart]

I would be willing to bet those are going to shore up defense in the far east.

they are not usefull in the baltic, north sea or med.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I posted in another thread that we've been living in Executive Orders for four years now. What's one more Clancy novel? That said, the actual shooting war would be... interesting. I doubt it would go nuclear because if anyone wants to say Beijing doesn't have anything aimed towards Russia, I've got a nice deal on the Brooklyn Bridge for you. It would also rather hilariously upset the current geopolitical order of Russia and China being... mutually opposed to the West, for lack of a better term (because they sure aren't friends) by rather forcibly orienting Russia towards the West as a simple matter of self-defense for them. Russia could easily make some resource concessions in Siberia for the US (or petroleum for Europe) in exchange for aid, all under the guise of "international stability" or some other bullshit that gets a couple CBG's deployed as "peacekeeping" forces with the explicit goal of bombing anything with a Chinese flag that's north of their border. Given the logistical difficulties of maintaining any sort of supply chain in a place like Siberia, it could very easily go from a rapid advance through the valleys to a couple million men starving and freezing to death. Its a gamble the Chinese probably won't do, if only because the potential loss of face there might be worse than any loss of face currently happening.

The millions of men starving to death is far more likely. There is fuck all infrastructure in Siberia and its fucking huge. Russia could make the Chinks lives a living hell with just a few thousand paramilitaries. The only way China could make the region secure for their own purposes is if they advance beyond the Ural Mountains and take the European side of Russia. And that is just not happening. If by some miracle they managed to extend their supply lines and use hundreds of thousands of expendable labourers lives to build the roads and rails necessary to reach the Ural Mountain passes (while those same long supply lines are constantly being harassed), years may have elapsed and by then the only way through would be blocked by a Russian Army on a war footing with a much shorter supply line. It would be an absolute chink massacre.

This is of course assuming the USA and NATO would just sit on their asses, which is highly doubtful. Eastern European countries may put aside their normal Slavic infighting and send their armies in support, while the USA may happily knife China's ambitions in the back with a naval blockade. There is just no conceivable way for China to take Siberia that I can see.

 

[Too Many Catgirls]

China wouldn't even be able to trick the Russians into signing some loaded contract either because the Russians would just ignore the contract and have enough muscle to back it up.

 

[Billy_Sama]

The millions of men starving to death is far more likely. There is fuck all infrastructure in Siberia and its fucking huge. Russia could make the Chinks lives a living hell with just a few thousand paramilitaries. The only way China could make the region secure for their own purposes is if they advance beyond the Ural Mountains and take the European side of Russia. And that is just not happening. If by some miracle they managed to extend their supply lines and use hundreds of thousands of expendable labourers lives to build the roads and rails necessary to reach the Ural Mountain passes (while those same long supply lines are constantly being harassed), years may have elapsed and by then the only way through would be blocked by a Russian Army on a war footing with a much shorter supply line. It would be an absolute chink massacre.

This is of course assuming the USA and NATO would just sit on their asses, which is highly doubtful. Eastern European countries may put aside their normal Slavic infighting and send their armies in support, while the USA may happily knife China's ambitions in the back with a naval blockade. There is just no conceivable way for China to take Siberia that I can see.

I wonder how some little green men in Chinese territory would do. China has a large military but I don't think they have much experience like Russian forces and would stumble dealing with them.

 

[The best and greatest]

China get's all of their labour from Africa (cheaper than getting their own people to do it). Also, many nations there give China free votes in world affairs due to how much money they pump into the country. They're not going to ruin that.

In what world does China value the lives of black people an entire ocean away but not the lives of their own people to the point where they will deliberately start a global plague in one of their own cities in the middle of the heartland?

I'm genuinely trying to not just write this off as stupid but I'm having difficulty understanding the mindset these priorities would require.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

In what world does China value the lives of black people an entire ocean away but not the lives of their own people to the point where they will deliberately start a global plague in one of their own cities in the middle of the heartland?

I'm genuinely trying to not just write this off as stupid but I'm having difficulty understanding the mindset these priorities would require.

They're also marrying their women to get a green card, so they're probably having another home to take refuge in case

 

[teriyakiburns]

In what world does China value the lives of black people an entire ocean away but not the lives of their own people to the point where they will deliberately start a global plague in one of their own cities in the middle of the heartland?

You're making a mistake to think they value either group as anything other than a fungible resource.