China's strategic vulnerabilities

gadgetcool5

Senior Member
Registered Member
Hi guys,

If things get very bad between China and the US (say, a conflict over Taiwan), what would China do in the following scenarios?

Scenario 1: U.S. Implements a total chip ban on China

Basically place the entire country on the "entity list" similar to that of Huawei. China's total indigenous semiconductor capacity is very far behind; currently choked at the 90 nm SMEE lithography node level. That means that they would no longer be able to build or import modern computers, including smartphones. Over time, this would obviously degrade their access to the Internet, and the whole IT economy. Including China's military being crippled eventually due to lack of cutting edge chips.

Scenario 2: Cut out of the SWIFT banking system

The SWIFT system is an information exchange system among international financial institutions. The bank card payment function supported by the SWIFT system is the reflection of a country's financial security. In the Ukraine crisis in 2014, the United States and Europe imposed sanctions across multiple sectors, including financial sanctions against Russia. The goal of such an extreme measure was to cut off the Russian banks from the SWIFT system, thereby crashing the Russian bank card payment system and in turn disrupting domestic and foreign economic activities. Although this measure was not actualized in the end, its threat to the Russian financial system has become an urgent issue for the country to address.

The same could be imposed on China.

In terms of membership composition, almost all the important financial institutions in the world are SWIFT members.

Scenario 3: Ban Chinese apps

Certain apps such as WeChat and Alipay have become core and base for Chinese society and the Chinese economy. However, these apps run on U.S. Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems. If these apps were banned from these operating systems, banned from the "Google Play Store" and the "Apple App Store" they could no longer be available. This could cause widespread chaos throughout China's economy. Other companies like Baidu and Alibaba could be banned as well instantly destroying their parent companies.

Scenario 4: Cut off oil

While the U.S. economy has become more energy self-sufficient over the past decade, the opposite is now true of China, which is now the world's largest energy importer of over 10 million barrels a day, a record level in 2019. If the U.S. closes the Persian Gulf, Panama Canal, or the Straits of Malacca then it can cut off China's supply of oil from OPEC members, which is 55% of the supply. China might be able to make up some of these with inland sources. However China's current sourcing from Iran is very low due to U.S. sanctions, while only about 15% of China's oil imports come from Russia. These run on long pipelines and some of the pipelines run through central Asia. These pipelines are very vulnerable to being crippled by a missile strike.

There are likely other scenarios not mentioned here. For instance, since Boeing and Airbus are the duopoly suppliers to China's aerospace industry, a cutoff here could cause chaos in China's commercial aviation market's ability to grow.

Today are not the days of Mao Zedong hiding in the mountains anymore. China is no longer autarkic and integrated with the world. What could it do to these scenarios, or is there no defense?
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Like I told you before, you can change your name but you can't change the way you think.

As usual everyone's plans only work if China doesn't retaliate like how Peter Navarro told Trump no one would dare retaliate against US tariffs...

Yeah the US is energy independent and they can order oil producing states not making money from the US to not make money from the next biggest oil consumer...? Or maybe the US will confiscate any oil tankers going to China violating international laws. It's the US that will be undermining every other countries' sovereignty and you like your previous handle believes the world will follow the US blindly. The US has to resort to this extraordinary action because the US has no civilized excuses to stop China. No need to order the world to do what the US wants if China was doing something worthy of this action hence why the US would have order the world.
 
Last edited:

gadgetcool5

Senior Member
Registered Member
Like I told you before, you can change your name but you can't change the way you think.

As usual everyone's plans only work if China doesn't retaliate like how Peter Navarro told Trump no one would dare retaliate against US tariffs...

Yeah the US is energy independent and they can order oil producing states not making money from the US to not make money from the next biggest oil consumer...? Or maybe the US will confiscate any oil tankers going to China violating international laws. It's the US that will be undermining every other countries' sovereignty and you like your previous handle believes the world will follow the US blindly. The US has to resort to this extraordinary action because the US has no civilized excuses to stop China. No need to order the world to do what the US wants if China was doing something worthy of this action hence why the US would have order the world.

It's really a shame that user left right before I joined. He/she sounded like a cool person.
 

EblisTx

Junior Member
Hi guys,

If things get very bad between China and the US (say, a conflict over Taiwan), what would China do in the following scenarios?

Scenario 1: U.S. Implements a total chip ban on China

Basically place the entire country on the "entity list" similar to that of Huawei. China's total indigenous semiconductor capacity is very far behind; currently choked at the 90 nm SMEE lithography node level. That means that they would no longer be able to build or import modern computers, including smartphones. Over time, this would obviously degrade their access to the Internet, and the whole IT economy. Including China's military being crippled eventually due to lack of cutting edge chips.

Scenario 2: Cut out of the SWIFT banking system

The SWIFT system is an information exchange system among international financial institutions. The bank card payment function supported by the SWIFT system is the reflection of a country's financial security. In the Ukraine crisis in 2014, the United States and Europe imposed sanctions across multiple sectors, including financial sanctions against Russia. The goal of such an extreme measure was to cut off the Russian banks from the SWIFT system, thereby crashing the Russian bank card payment system and in turn disrupting domestic and foreign economic activities. Although this measure was not actualized in the end, its threat to the Russian financial system has become an urgent issue for the country to address.

The same could be imposed on China.

In terms of membership composition, almost all the important financial institutions in the world are SWIFT members.

Scenario 3: Ban Chinese apps

Certain apps such as WeChat and Alipay have become core and base for Chinese society and the Chinese economy. However, these apps run on U.S. Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems. If these apps were banned from these operating systems, banned from the "Google Play Store" and the "Apple App Store" they could no longer be available. This could cause widespread chaos throughout China's economy. Other companies like Baidu and Alibaba could be banned as well instantly destroying their parent companies.

Scenario 4: Cut off oil

While the U.S. economy has become more energy self-sufficient over the past decade, the opposite is now true of China, which is now the world's largest energy importer of over 10 million barrels a day, a record level in 2019. If the U.S. closes the Persian Gulf, Panama Canal, or the Straits of Malacca then it can cut off China's supply of oil from OPEC members, which is 55% of the supply. China might be able to make up some of these with inland sources. However China's current sourcing from Iran is very low due to U.S. sanctions, while only about 15% of China's oil imports come from Russia. These run on long pipelines and some of the pipelines run through central Asia. These pipelines are very vulnerable to being crippled by a missile strike.

There are likely other scenarios not mentioned here. For instance, since Boeing and Airbus are the duopoly suppliers to China's aerospace industry, a cutoff here could cause chaos in China's commercial aviation market's ability to grow.

Today is not the days of Mao Zedong hiding in the mountains anymore. China is no longer autarkic and integrated with the world. What could it do to these scenarios, or is there no defense?


This is my two cents on the topic:

Scenario 1: the U.S. Implements a total chip ban on China
From what I read, it is more the indigenous 28nm lithography is almost ready. Which should be able to meet the need of most 5G devices. Cellphone used CPU may be affected, however, with better software design, it is not a big deal. The PC/Server CPU might also be affected. The real bottleneck of the Chinese is more on the design software. However, it is a lot hard to ban the software.

Scenario 2: Cut out of the SWIFT banking system
China is aware of the thread, and multiple alternatives are explored. Considering the market size of China, a standalone Banking system is sustainable. Meanwhile, the current SWIFT system will lose a major market.

Scenario 3: Ban Chinese apps
In fact, Chinese apps already have their own system. Google Play Store is banned in the mainland from the dawn of Android. iOS is slightly different since Apple controls ever the Apps. But people will just migrate to Android.

Scenario 4: Cut off oil
In your scenario, US was going to cut off all the oil tankers from the Persian Gulf and Straits of Malacca as well as attacking the pipelines in Russia. It sounds more like a prologue of WW III to me.

Again, what people don't understand is how integrated the Chinese economy is to the world. Not only as one of the largest markets as well as the largest manufacturers. In your hypothetical case, China could just turn into any one of the two Airplane manufacturers and offer an exclusive right to the world's largest aviation market. Such a move could easily break the cartel.
 

PiSigma

"the engineer"
This is my two cents on the topic:

Scenario 1: the U.S. Implements a total chip ban on China
From what I read, it is more the indigenous 28nm lithography is almost ready. Which should be able to meet the need of most 5G devices. Cellphone used CPU may be affected, however, with better software design, it is not a big deal. The PC/Server CPU might also be affected. The real bottleneck of the Chinese is more on the design software. However, it is a lot hard to ban the software.

Scenario 2: Cut out of the SWIFT banking system
China is aware of the thread, and multiple alternatives are explored. Considering the market size of China, a standalone Banking system is sustainable. Meanwhile, the current SWIFT system will lose a major market.

Scenario 3: Ban Chinese apps
In fact, Chinese apps already have their own system. Google Play Store is banned in the mainland from the dawn of Android. iOS is slightly different since Apple controls ever the Apps. But people will just migrate to Android.

Scenario 4: Cut off oil
In your scenario, US was going to cut off all the oil tankers from the Persian Gulf and Straits of Malacca as well as attacking the pipelines in Russia. It sounds more like a prologue of WW III to me.

Again, what people don't understand is how integrated the Chinese economy is to the world. Not only as one of the largest markets as well as the largest manufacturers. In your hypothetical case, China could just turn into any one of the two Airplane manufacturers and offer an exclusive right to the world's largest aviation market. Such a move could easily break the cartel.
Everything adiru/69/gatcool asks is a USA shoot self in foot move. The dollar is the petrodollar for a reason, if the largest importer can't use swift, watch the dollar crash. Same with oil ban. U think all the oil exporters will starve and go bankrupt for toilet paper. No, they will start accepting yuan and euro and bypass swift to sell to their customers... Remember the customer is always right, especially if it's backed by gold.

China has been trying to get off of swift for years, already started to trade in own currency with a lot of countries, so killing off swift slowly. The Europeans is doing the same thing.
 

visitor123

New Member
Registered Member
Hi guys,

If things get very bad between China and the US (say, a conflict over Taiwan), what would China do in the following scenarios?

Scenario 1: U.S. Implements a total chip ban on China

Basically place the entire country on the "entity list" similar to that of Huawei. China's total indigenous semiconductor capacity is very far behind; currently choked at the 90 nm SMEE lithography node level. That means that they would no longer be able to build or import modern computers, including smartphones. Over time, this would obviously degrade their access to the Internet, and the whole IT economy. Including China's military being crippled eventually due to lack of cutting edge chips.

Scenario 2: Cut out of the SWIFT banking system

The SWIFT system is an information exchange system among international financial institutions. The bank card payment function supported by the SWIFT system is the reflection of a country's financial security. In the Ukraine crisis in 2014, the United States and Europe imposed sanctions across multiple sectors, including financial sanctions against Russia. The goal of such an extreme measure was to cut off the Russian banks from the SWIFT system, thereby crashing the Russian bank card payment system and in turn disrupting domestic and foreign economic activities. Although this measure was not actualized in the end, its threat to the Russian financial system has become an urgent issue for the country to address.

The same could be imposed on China.

In terms of membership composition, almost all the important financial institutions in the world are SWIFT members.

Scenario 3: Ban Chinese apps

Certain apps such as WeChat and Alipay have become core and base for Chinese society and the Chinese economy. However, these apps run on U.S. Google Android and Apple iOS operating systems. If these apps were banned from these operating systems, banned from the "Google Play Store" and the "Apple App Store" they could no longer be available. This could cause widespread chaos throughout China's economy. Other companies like Baidu and Alibaba could be banned as well instantly destroying their parent companies.

Scenario 4: Cut off oil

While the U.S. economy has become more energy self-sufficient over the past decade, the opposite is now true of China, which is now the world's largest energy importer of over 10 million barrels a day, a record level in 2019. If the U.S. closes the Persian Gulf, Panama Canal, or the Straits of Malacca then it can cut off China's supply of oil from OPEC members, which is 55% of the supply. China might be able to make up some of these with inland sources. However China's current sourcing from Iran is very low due to U.S. sanctions, while only about 15% of China's oil imports come from Russia. These run on long pipelines and some of the pipelines run through central Asia. These pipelines are very vulnerable to being crippled by a missile strike.

There are likely other scenarios not mentioned here. For instance, since Boeing and Airbus are the duopoly suppliers to China's aerospace industry, a cutoff here could cause chaos in China's commercial aviation market's ability to grow.

Today are not the days of Mao Zedong hiding in the mountains anymore. China is no longer autarkic and integrated with the world. What could it do to these scenarios, or is there no defense?
nuke India then world peace ensues.
 

Tyler

Captain
Registered Member
The Chinese and the world will then reverse impose the same ban on their main adversary. The main country will have isolated itself from the world.
 
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