What is China about?

[Nick]

Aukus won't be soon enough. China is not going to wait until there is enough fire power on their doorstep.

HMS Queen Elizabeth does patrols in the area on a regular basis and China knows it's there. The fact that China is continually building artificial island to extend its territorial waters is an issue, they eventually will claim Taiwan via the back door. 

[T00ts]

This is what AUKUS is all about: a nuclear force in the South Pacific. The fact it annoyed the French is a bonus.

Aukus won't be soon enough. China is not going to wait until there is enough fire power on their doorstep. 

[Nick]

Eaxactly! China is gradually building up for military action to retake Taiwan, which it has always viewed as a renegade province.

It wishes to deter the USA and others going to war with it over the issue. The ability to drop an undetected nuclear misslle on Washington or New York or anyplace else would certainly give pause for thought. How many Americans would regard Taiwan as important enough to be worth getting nuked over.

More generally, I fear that this signals the start of a new arms race, and when it comes to the delivery of hypersonic missiles, China has a clear lead. The USSR could not compete with the USA economically or technologically, but China looks set to be able to do both.

And with Russia also still a powerful military and nuclear power whose forces are currently depolyed as if readying to invade the Ukraine, the West appears right now to be in comparative decline and in danger of retreating in the face of armed advances by others. I think the world is a more dangerous place now than it was in the Cold War. Most of us just haven't woken up to that fact yet. We might when Chinese or Russian armies start invading places. And then we have climate change to worry about too which as it deepens will surely rathcet up tensions.

This is what AUKUS is all about: a nuclear force in the South Pacific. The fact it annoyed the French is a bonus. 

[srb7677]

I watch with interest the build up of Russian troops on the Ukraine border with talk of invasion in January. At the same time there is an apparent threat of China making moves. Is it orchestrated? Russia and China in a two pronged attack both helping the other by distracting other big powers. I wouldn't put it past them.

Well both nations have recently conducted joint military exercises, and both see the democratic west as their main potential enemy. If Russia invaded the Ukraine and China simultaneously invaded Taiwan it would represent probably too great a challenge for the west and I think they know it. The west would respond with harsh words, veiled threats, troop deployments, and economic sanctions. But in the end it will do no more. Russia will bring Ukraine back into it's orbit, and China will retake Taiwan. This will rapidly become a fait accompli. The west will have blimked first, which could signal the beginning of a widely recognised decline.

I hope I am wrong but this is the obvious imminent danger, it seems to me.

[T00ts]

Why would China bomb its own market place ?

Sorry perhaps that read wrongly I meant China taking back control of Taiwan at the same time as Russia keeps people focussed on Ukraine.

[Streetwalker]

Why would China bomb its own market place ?

[T00ts]

I watch with interest the build up of Russian troops on the Ukraine border with talk of invasion in January. At the same time there is an apparent threat of China making moves. Is it orchestrated? Russia and China in a two pronged attack both helping the other by distracting other big powers. I wouldn't put it past them.

[srb7677]

I thanked the post, I was with you all the way until the last sentence. What does China care about climate change?

It would I feel be too much of a digression to discuss climate change at length here. Which is why I devoted only one sentence to it. China has scientists too who advise politicians. It will naturally in the long run care about anything that can adversely affect China. But my primary point was that the destabilising effect of climate change will increase tensions globally, with China and others seeking opportunities to exploit these tensions.

[Barry]

I thanked the post, I was with you all the way until the last sentence. What does China care about climate change?
  

[srb7677]

Doesn't matter whether they'd use it or not,the threat is there.

Eaxactly! China is gradually building up for military action to retake Taiwan, which it has always viewed as a renegade province.

It wishes to deter the USA and others going to war with it over the issue. The ability to drop an undetected nuclear misslle on Washington or New York or anyplace else would certainly give pause for thought. How many Americans would regard Taiwan as important enough to be worth getting nuked over.

More generally, I fear that this signals the start of a new arms race, and when it comes to the delivery of hypersonic missiles, China has a clear lead. The USSR could not compete with the USA economically or technologically, but China looks set to be able to do both.

And with Russia also still a powerful military and nuclear power whose forces are currently depolyed as if readying to invade the Ukraine, the West appears right now to be in comparative decline and in danger of retreating in the face of armed advances by others. I think the world is a more dangerous place now than it was in the Cold War. Most of us just haven't woken up to that fact yet. We might when Chinese or Russian armies start invading places. And then we have climate change to worry about too which as it deepens will surely rathcet up tensions.

[papasmurf]

So you are pro China?

No merely, wary of propaganda whatever the source.

[T00ts]

Given anti Chinese propaganda we get from Western governments about China, personally no.

So you are pro China?

[Sampanviking]

In the first instance "Hypersonic Glide Vehicles" are a new class of guided missile, being developed by China and the US with Russia actually having a Hypersonic missile ready and deployed in their arsenal.

In the second instance, the key feature of these missiles is not only the speed (not as fast as a Ballistic Missile on re-entry) but the fact that they have terminal guidance and do not follow a simple and therefore predictable trajectory.

Whilst such missiles (like any other) are Nuclear capable, most commentators believe that the Chinese want these systems primarily as Conventional Weapons and as "Carrier Killers", to be able to hit US Fleet Carriers at significant distance from Chinese shores.

To those worrying about Chinese intentions, just remember that they became a nuclear power in the early 1960's and have never threatened to use their arsenal against any other country in all that time. They developed them after the US threatened them with Nuclear Weapons in respect of the Korean War. The Americans of course have used such weapons against a none nuclear enemy in the past and have threatened that use more then once since.

[papasmurf]

Is anyone really taking the threat of China seriously?

Given anti Chinese propaganda we get from Western governments about China, personally no.

[cromwell]

Doesn't matter whether they'd use it or not,the threat is there.