Yup. That's definitely China giving the middle finger to India's territorial claims over South Tibet.
Ladakh Flash Point
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I don’t think Korea can be counted on to be an ally to the US against China. They know how close and how tiny they are. The American bases and infrastructure along with troop concentrations might be targeted in a future US-China conflict, assuming the US does not preemptively declare it will not use any Korean-based assets in such a confrontation.
South Korea is one of the highest population density nations on Earth. Imagine being a neutral country this small and this close and this dense (population-wise), and being this geographically close to China, all while housing one of the highest concentrations of American military assets outside CONUS!
The number of accidental war dead among the Korean population, not to mention collateral damage to the country, could be astronomical.
I’m sure at the outset of hostilities, or if it seems conflict is imminent, Korea will tell the US it does not agree to use of its military assets from Korea itself.
Speaking of, does anyone know if Korea has an agreement with America that states American military assets cannot be used in a conflict outside of the Korean Peninsula?
IMO, the only military support the US can count on is from fellow Anglo nations (Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand), India, Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. And even then I’m doubtful they’ll all join in, least likely probably being the Philippines, Vietnam, and Canada.
A handful of other nations could join such as Denmark, Norway, and Poland though I highly doubt it (though their gung-ho military attitude towards the US is out of the norm compared to other mainland European nations).
So PRC's military budge is 2.5x that of India, but its actual GDP is 6x that of India.
By that measure, China is still not spending proportionally.
That being said, India is paying a huge premium in terms of Graft and foreign equipment. Plus, from an institutional standpoint, Indian military is more of a welfare program, as some 60% of its expenditure goes into salaries and HR. An optimized budget should see something like 30-40% in HR, 15-25% in R&D, and rest in O&M of current fielding.
Maintaining a large land army is a huge disadvantage these days. A large infantry formation can also be characterized as shrapnel fodder.
Ideally, India should dispense with its protectionist trade policies and develop deeper economic ties with Pakistan, alleviating some stress points and creating a win-win.
In regards to China, JAP, ROK, Vietnam are Chinese adversaries on paper. They make a lot of noise, but if you peel back the veneer, you will see that they are hugely dependent on China both from a supply chain and market perspective. Mostly, they are bitchy to China to get some support from US and then using that as bargaining chips with China. This is the game small and weak nations play, and always will play. It is survival.
Even Taiwan talks a lot of shit, but relies on China for like 40% of its GDP.
It's all a show.
I tend to use the SIPRI military spending estimates which seem to be the most reliable. The last figures are
China: 1.9% of GDP
India: 2.4% of GDP
So Chinese military spending is like 4x greater than India.
We've had this discussion before in the thread below, which is still valid.
China's strategy in Korean peninsula
习近平将对朝鲜民主主义人民共和国进行国事访问 Xi Jinping to make state visit to DPRK from June 20th to 21st.
www.sinodefenceforum.com
In the event of a US-China conflict, suppose China is losing an air-sea battle in the Western Pacific?
Wouldn't it then make sense for China to engage the US Army in a land war on the Korean peninsula. The USA cannot win such a war, but the Chinese Army can hope to conquer and occupy South Korea.
And North Korea will be an enthusiastic backer.
If China is defeated in a war, North Korea knows it is next.
In comparison, it would be mostly Chinese soldiers who will be doing the dying, and then gifting South Korea to North Korea.
South Korea could proclaim neutrality all they want, but if there are US soldiers based in Korea, China will just go to war with these US soldiers anyway if it's in Chinese interests.
Let's look at some precedent. During the Korean War, 17 countries participated in the UN forces to fight against "communist invasion."
Here is the list of the contribution forces:
Combat forces
- – 590,911
- – 302,483
- Canada – 26,791
- – 17,000
- – 14,198
- – 6,326
- – 6,007
- – 5,453
- – 1,468
- – 1,385
- – 1,263
- – 1,119
- – 1,068
- – 900
- – 826
- – 819
- – 44
The potential war between the US and China would most likely be about Taiwan. This time around, there won't be a UN resolution calling for fighting the aggression because Taiwan is considered by UN part of Chinese territory, and of course China has the veto too. All the countries in the above list, or just about any country in the world recognizes Taiwan as part of China sovereignty. So no country has any legitimate excuse/cause to participate any US-led coalition.
That doesn't mean countries won't find other excuses to participate. It just means it'll have to weight the risk and return more nakedly and carefully. The US and China are not the same countries as they were back in the 1950, let's just put it that way.
The most likely candidates to join the fight against China will then be the Five-Eye countries and US treaty allies. Among the five-eyes, I would rank the likelihood in decreasing order as: Australia, Canada, UK, and New Zealand, with New Zealand being highly unlikely. I would count their contributions as not very significant, but more symbolic. Australia would be a relatively more significant contributor, being geographically closer to China. But it's still limited by the size and capability of its forces.
Among the US treaty allies in Asia-Pacific, Japan is very likely to get involved. It may not be fighting in the front-line due to constitution restriction and fear of mass retaliation. But it has no choice but gets involved because of the mutual defense treaty with the US, and the fact that it is an occupied country. It will mostly likely participate in some peripheral military actions such as ASW and logistic support, besides being _the_ logistics bases. South Korea and Philippine are unlikely to join: too risky for them and not enough skin in the game.
So the US would have to fight mostly alone, with logistic support from Japan and some symbolic forces from a few FIVEYE to show Anglo solidarity.
You left out the Indian Army. If the nationalist are in charged, their support are virtually guaranteed.
I strongly doubt it. Indian media and analysts can be quite delusional, but Indian leadership is more realistic and they know better. In general, with the exception of Japan, China's neighbors won't get involved, either unwilling or fearful of mass retaliation.
Apparently BJP is still polling quite well which will help preclude them from being too irrational in their actions and needing to escalate the situation for political points. All the public rhetoric in their media is relatively inconsequential.
On the contrary... I think although Indian leadership might be more realistic, the Indian media’s and analysts’s delusions, would become the driving force, creating a situation where the Indian population would push Indian leadership to act, I am not sure there are enough of a sane voice in India to push back on the delusions of media and analysts... they have pushed it way too far already, when their, obvious internal problems are being blamed on China and has a fair amount of agreeing voices, whether these voices are fabricated or not, it will still have an effect on the general population.
As for Japan... I am actually a little doubtful, even though they are essentially a puppet of the US... they know full well they will be on the frontlines and what the Chinese old guard would do if they get the chance for revenge... what happened before and during WW2 is still in the mindset of a lot of people in China... given the chance for pay back we can imagine what the result would be and I am sure the Japanese leadership knows too...
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