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tokenanalyst

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Eventine said:
Japanese nuclearization is not an existential issue for China. In fact, this can only help China in the long term: 1) it will make Japan more independent of the US, which increases the chance it becomes a neutral party, 2) it will make it easy to justify accelerating China's own nuclear build up, as the West now has lost its strongest argument against China's nuclear build-up, 3) it'll open the box to sharing nuclear weapons with US opponents.

Obviously, China should still flip a table over it and use it as leverage to 1) punish Japan where it benefits China, 2) excuse its own nuclear build-up above parity with the US, 3) proliferate nuclear weapons to US opponents like Iran and Cuba. Let the US panic & sweat over the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world, as this can only make it harder for a global imperial power to exert its will via military means, which is what the US does, but not what China does.

The only exception here is if nuclear weapons somehow make it into the hands of Taiwan. THAT does require a military response.
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When a nation plans to build nuclear weapons, apart from the need for real life testing, it has to pick a nuclear doctrine:

1- Coercive nuclear arsenal: Their nuclear weapons exist to blackmail other states, they aren´t at risk of survival, they don´t have non-first use and they will use their nukes even in a convectional war. for example The U.S. and Russia.

2- Minimal Deterrence: They have non-first use, the maintain an arsenal to ensure minimal deterrence and they will only use their nukes if threatened with nukes. For example China and India.

3- Survival Arsenal: These are states will only use their arsenal if they perceive that their country survival is at risk. For example North Korea and Pakistan.

I think Japan Right Wing Parties are pushing these policies because probably they think "nukes are cool", I wouldn´t be surprise is that is the case, these parties are like magatards, and second because they probably THINK they could use them as weapons of coercion, without really understanding what that entails and the real danger that could bring to their own country and their own people. Japan is under US nuclear umbrella and have ZERO existential risks in Asia, what is the point.
 
GZDRefugee

GZDRefugee

Senior Member
Registered Member
Puss in Boots said:
China's newly built naval vessels in a single year are almost equal to the entire French navy. Why do you still think China's military spending is insufficient?
China benefits from the low-cost manufacturing capabilities of a complete industrial chain. What $300 billion can accomplish in China, the US might not be able to do even with nearly a trillion dollars.
Maintaining reasonable military spending is extremely beneficial to China's long-term planning. China won't be like that crazy guy next door, constantly thinking "the rise and fall of the empire hinges on this one battle."
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Nobody is saying to go nuts with the spending. Truth is China's military is tiny for its population and economy. When pumping out the French navy in a year is about 1% of China's total shipbuilding output by tonnage, there's room for expansion when you're preparing to fight off the most powerful bandit clan in world history.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
I have a feeling Americans are are going to be arrogant enough to think they can do what they did in Venezuela to China. I just saw on CNN an interview with General Petraeus who's claiming Venezuela had China's and Russia's most sophisticated air defense systems and the US was able to neutralize it and Maduro had military guards equivalent to the best in the world that US forces easily handled. The only reason why the US did not kill Maduro was because that's an assassination of a head of state. They have to go through the paces to make US colonialism look like an international criminal case.

Right now in Europe they're thinking about doing the same thing in Africa. Europe is heading to the bottom because they have no resources of their own and need to take them from others. Africa is the richest continent on the planet. They don't like China in Africa like the US doesn't like seeing China in Latin America. And look at how the Liberal Democratic world is holding their tongue. If it was China doing this, they would all be up-in-arms painting China as a threat ganging up the world against China.
 
B

bebops

Junior Member
Registered Member
tamsen_ikard said:
Because China's opponents are not going to let China be comfortable with their current trajectory. They are reacting to China's strategy and their reaction is to be more aggressive now when they still have the upper hand. Japan is rapidly boosting its military budget and is hoping to get nukes while China is still too timid to make moves. Taiwan is also getting extremely aggressive about acquiring more weaponry.

US and the west are also quite aggressive about not only boosting up the military, but using it to take out opponents to clear the field before focusing on China.

Ever since Trump 1, China has been nothing but reactive to US moves. Every US sanctions, bans or aggressive action against Chinese companies or Chinese investments have caught China flatfooted. Yes, they have been able to survive until now with more investments on the tech front, but overall they have been reactive rather than pro-active.

If China doesn't boost up the military soon and also start acting more aggressive, their current comfortable existance could cause long term damage to their future.
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I read an article last year saying China's true military budget was 700 billion.

The biggest gap they need to fix is the submarine and underwater warfare area. I think they are waiting for 095 and 095 before they start pumping it out like crazy. If it is almost here, then just wait for it.
 
Puss in Boots

Puss in Boots

Junior Member
Registered Member
tamsen_ikard said:
Because China's opponents are not going to let China be comfortable with their current trajectory. They are reacting to China's strategy and their reaction is to be more aggressive now when they still have the upper hand. Japan is rapidly boosting its military budget and is hoping to get nukes while China is still too timid to make moves. Taiwan is also getting extremely aggressive about acquiring more weaponry.

US and the west are also quite aggressive about not only boosting up the military, but using it to take out opponents to clear the field before focusing on China.

Ever since Trump 1, China has been nothing but reactive to US moves. Every US sanctions, bans or aggressive action against Chinese companies or Chinese investments have caught China flatfooted. Yes, they have been able to survive until now with more investments on the tech front, but overall they have been reactive rather than pro-active.

If China doesn't boost up the military soon and also start acting more aggressive, their current comfortable existance could cause long term damage to their future.
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The US and Western countries are currently the ones most hoping China will adopt aggressive policies, because they have realized they cannot compete with China on the path of peaceful development; time is on China's side. As long as China maintains stable development, its ultimate victory is foreseeable. However, if aggressive measures are taken, the final outcome becomes unpredictable, which is the variable the US wants to see.
There is absolutely no need to worry about Japan's nuclear weapons; none of the surrounding countries, including the US, would allow such a thing to happen.
 
T

tamsen_ikard

Captain
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
And how much money is needed for maintenance and pilot training? After a couple of decades when the airframes are old, what do you do with them?
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China is currently growing at 8.5% in PPP GDP in the last few years since Covid. While nominal GDP growth is much slower due to deflation, there is explosive growth in PPP GDP.

Even if China grows its PPP GDP by a much slower 6% rate in the next 20 years, its GDP PPP will grow by 3.2 times! Therefore, I expect China's GDP to be much larger in 20 years and they will have sufficient budget to do maintenance on hardware produced now.

China should not only aim to replace its older hardware but over time expand both its air force and Navy to overmatch US and allies. Only then it can hope to dominate the western pacific and achieve proper security.

Therefore, the problem is choice. Be timid and hope for the best, or prepare for the worst with much more muscular military budget and foreign policy.
 
Engineer

Engineer

Major
tamsen_ikard said:
China's civillian production numbers for pretty much everything is several times US numbers. So, if they were serious about military production, they can easily produce 300 fighter jets per year, produce whole lot more nuclear and non nuclear submarines along with more surface destroyers and cruisers, they can also produce enough tanks and other armored vehicles to completely replace all the old models.
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Military production is not like civilian production. Almost every piece of military equipment is assembled by hand. To increase military production, there needs to be an increased in the amount skilled labour. Some 10% increase annually would be a lot already.

tamsen_ikard said:
1.4 billion population is certainly not a problem getting more recruits. Training can be expedited as well. Besides, its not like China is going expand the military. Just replacing old hardware with newer stuff much faster is not going to need more recruits.

The problem is the will to spend more. I always say, China is still in hide and bide mode when it comes to the military. They are still worried about the optics of appearing too aggressive and try to show how they are not raising military budget that much.
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Military is a resource sink and does not contribute to future growth. That means short term surge is not free but comes at a cost of long term development. Yet, resources are finite, so there must be a trade off. For example, if you want to see 300 J-20s get produced next year, that would come at a cost of J-36 entering IOC several more years later.
 
Randomuser

Randomuser

Major
Registered Member
AssassinsMace said:
I have a feeling Americans are are going to be arrogant enough to think they can do what they did in Venezuela to China. I just saw on CNN an interview with General Petraeus who's claiming Venezuela had China's and Russia's most sophisticated air defense systems and the US was able to neutralize it and Maduro had military guards equivalent to the best in the world that US forces easily handled. The only reason why the US did not kill Maduro was because that's an assassination of a head of state. They have to go through the paces to make US colonialism look like an international criminal case.

Right now in Europe they're thinking about doing the same thing in Africa. Europe is heading to the bottom because they have no resources of their own and need to take them from others. Africa is the richest continent on the planet. They don't like China in Africa like the US doesn't like seeing China in Latin America. And look at how the Liberal Democratic world is holding their tongue. If it was China doing this, they would all be up-in-arms painting China as a threat ganging up the world against China.
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I mean the US in reality is at war with Russia right now in Ukraine. For some reason people seem to forget that. Maybe thats why Zelensky needs to keep opening his mouth coz maybe he does have a point on how fast people forget.

If they're so tough and strong like, why not use all those fancy weapons and tactics to finally end this Ukraine war which has dragged on for years to a point even Americans like Trump himself complain about? They talk about Russia exposing how weak it is but they seem to forget they are fighting too and haven't made any substantial gains and may arguably be slowly losing the attrition.

At the end of the day, the biggest battle is still in front of them. Maybe crushing some smaller guy will convince people who overreact emotionally on day one but after lets say a month, people will slowly become more level headed again. If US loses Ukraine, I wonder how many people will even remember Syria or Venezuela compared to that,
 
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Engineer

Engineer

Major
tamsen_ikard said:
China is currently growing at 8.5% in PPP GDP in the last few years since Covid. While nominal GDP growth is much slower due to deflation, there is explosive growth in PPP GDP.

Even if China grows its PPP GDP by a much slower 6% rate in the next 20 years, its GDP PPP will grow by 3.2 times! Therefore, I expect China's GDP to be much larger in 20 years and they will have sufficient budget to do maintenance on hardware produced now.
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GDP growth is not growth of government's income!
 
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