China launches first aircraft carrier

Once more into the breach, I guess...
The Chinese QBZ is arguably just as affective as the U.S. M-series weapons. The Chinese T-series tanks are less affective than the Abrams, yes but it is easier and cheaper to produce and can still do a 1v1 to the Abrams under certain conditions. Not to mention that they get way better mpg than the Abrams [*** Abrams gets 2 mpg!] Chinese soldiers are undoubtably trained in martial arts at a greater level than U.S. military forces, owing the background that they have. In tactics, they can be just as afficient as the U.S. forces. Spending doesn't necessarily mean that they are better. A few years ago I read an article about the U.S. military buying mini-fidges at 2K a unit. These mini-fridges weren't in any way different from the cheaper models, they were just from a particular company. This demonstrated 2 things:
1.The amount of war profitering in the U.S. [companies that make money by ripping off taxpayers].
2. The corruption and incompetancy of the War Department's spending platform.
And I wouldn't say that the U.S. is immune to the Chinese 'innovation' trend. A Chinese [born in the Taiwan] was arrested. His crime? Selling every plan for nuclear capabilities for the next decade and a half to the Chinese government. Look up Wen Ho Lee. Here you go:
http://intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs106t ... nholee.pdf
My point is that, if nuclear weapons designs, possibly the most importan military secrets out there, can be obtained by the Chinese, what is safe?

The QBZ has about, oh, 0 real combat experience. The 95 is a good gun but the environment it's designed to fight in is China. And it may be their standard issue on paper, but realistically they would be forced to use Type 81s in large-scale conflict. In any case the rifle a country uses isn't what determines the level of its military competency.

China's armor is pathetically outdated. They're still primarily using their ripped off T-59s. Their modern armor is pretty good, but not capable of a standoff with an Abrams, nor of most other nations' MBTs.

Hand-to-hand combat is a pretty useless skill for the average infrantryman nowadays. Special forces are the only ones who would actually utilize these skills and US special forces are indeed very competent in that regard.

China doesn't have near the amount of command support structures that the US or most other nations have, and while I'm unfamiliar with their officer training I'm quite certain that they aren't up to snuff with our boys by simple virtue of the curriculum.

Extraneous spending maybe comprises 1-2% of spending. This circumstance you highlight is 100% worthless as a mark against the fact that the US devotes almost a thousand times more to military R&D than China does to its entire military budget. And R&D is the second smallest portion of the defense budget. (in reality the Chinese military budget is infitesimal against most of our projects, and comprises less than even the smallest portions of the budget.)

It demonstrates one thing: we're not sparing our pockets on mini-fridges.

That's not what war profiteering is.

This isn't the 40s. It's the Department of Defense, and they are not the ones who set the budget. The money spent is approved by Congress and reviewed by the CBO, and the DoD has a historically great track record as a responsible spender; I hardly think you can call them corrupt or incompetent.

Even burglarizing the ideas of other countries leaves China in a poor military state. I don't think we really ought to be worried.

But what's more interesting is that you appear to support the corrupt, authoritarian Chinese government.

Hand-to-hand combat is a pretty useless skill for the average infrantryman nowadays. Special forces are the only ones who would actually utilize these skills and US special forces are indeed very competent in that regard.

China doesn't have near the amount of command support structures that the US or most other nations have, and while I'm unfamiliar with their officer training I'm quite certain that they aren't up to snuff with our boys by simple virtue of the curriculum.

Extraneous spending maybe comprises 1-2% of spending. This circumstance you highlight is 100% worthless as a mark against the fact that the US devotes more to military R&D than China does to its entire military budget. And R&D is the second smallest portion of the defense budget. (in reality the Chinese military budget is infitesimal against most of our projects, and comprises less than even the smallest portions of the budget.)

It demonstrates one thing: we're not sparing our pockets on mini-fridges.

That's not what war profiteering is.

This isn't the 40s. It's the Department of Defense, and they are not the ones who set the budget. The money spent is approved by Congress and reviewed by the CBO, and the DoD has a historically great track record as a responsible spender; I hardly think you can call them corrupt or incompetent.

Even burglarizing the ideas of other countries leaves China in a poor military state. I don't think we really ought to be worried.

But what's more interesting is that you appear to support the corrupt, authoritarian Chinese government.[/quote:8i6og88q]

Damn it. I was typing up a long winded report primarily about the weaponry, but you kind of ninja'd me. Point being is QBZ is a vastly overrated rifle. The Chinese tout it as a equal to modern standards for the US Army, but trust me, I have shot one, and it isn't. Not to mention the thing has about zero practicallity in the hand of your average lineman, seeing how it is difficult to clean and repair, so that would require special training. Toss in that it jammed five times in the two hundred rounds I fired and my conclusion is that the thing is a piece of shit. Even the updated versions aren't a drastic improvement.

Just a note to the moderators: I seem to have a typing issue where if I type too much it starts jumping the view of the text upwards with every stroke. This is very annoying and hinders my ability to post. Please fix.

On the QBZ: so it may or may not be the most effective gun out there, the point is that they have the capacity to build equal guns to the U.S. I seriously doubt that they released the best of the models for the world to oogle at. That would hinder the myth that exists around their military might and make them seem vulnerable. If all else fails, they can always resort to refering back to the AK-series.

The point with the T-series example is moderate quality v massive quantity. The Abrams could probably take a hit yes, but it could result in the crew having to bale incase the tank has been compormised.

Granted, modern warfare is not won at hand-to-hand ranges, the point is that the Chinese are not competely incompetant as you make them out to be. Like I said before about the tactics, without seeing them in combat, we can only agree to disagree about how effective they would be in theoretical situations.

R&D that rarely results in well, anything, most military models are scraped and end up being used by countries not so friendly to the U.S. Excessive spending doesn't mean that they accomplish anything. Not to mention that, as you pointed out on other topics [or maybe this was Mayor], China does not always release realiable numbers. For all we can speculate, China could have both better tech and a larger budget for its military. It doesn't have to release budget reports like the U.S. does. Remember, that the U.S.'s budget is to pay for multiple wars in both maintaining them and dealing with the soldiers' salaries and benefits plus the money to pay for the dead. They have a massive amount to pay to various people, it doesn't mean that it gets them anywhere.

It is war profitering in a certain way. A company making money on a war environment and only because of the war itself. The company wasn't selling its product to the adverage consumer, they were selling solely to the military at a rediculous profit.
About the Department of Defense: its late and I'm too tired to check who proportions the funding where. Your point is conceded. I'll just assume that you are right for now.

Don't underestimate the capacity of a country to seize the initative and make the most of a sole military secret stolen to their advantage. China has not just one man spying you know. And the U.S. government constantly is on the alert for a greater danger than one man: hackers. We COULD debate the efficiency of hacking to get secrets, but that would be a pointless exercise as neither of us [I believe] knows enough about it to determine anything.

My point was never that the U.S. had to worry about an attack from China. Just that the Chinese are not incompetant in their military, in spite of its dated condition.

I'll post about the my alleged supporting 'a corrupt and authoritarian Chinese government' later, its late and I need to sleep.

No, that's the whole point it. It isn't even close to equal to the standard issue NATO weapons. The fact that it's China's best and still inferior completely proves Kali's point. And lol, AK-47/74's. People who know nothing about weapons always act like it's a cure all gun, when in trust, if I would rather use it as a club than face a M-Series or MTAR with it in a straight up gun fight. The rifling, the rails, the attachments, the iron sights, the handling, the recoil. It's all horribly inferior.

I think this is an internet browser issue; I use Firefox and haven't encountered it.

Well if that was your point then you failed to make it stand... If you concede that their best isn't great then I don't see how they're equaling the US in this regard...

You mean to say that they're hiding that they actually have a massive supply of super-kickass guns ready to be issued at a moment's notice? What?

The AK-series is pretty pathetic, especially in a modern warfare scenario and especially against the States. Their Type 81 is a crappy derivative of the AK and still their largest and most readily available weapon. It's not a good thing for them.

T-54s (that's all that "China's" T-59s really are; even back in the day they jacked designs from the Soviets...) are incredibly outdated. Standard armament for T-54s can't punch through the Abrams and are able to fire at something like 1/6 the rate. Their purported MBT (T-96 I believe) is slightly better but not by much. Definitely not designed with armor-armor combat in mind.

I'm not making them out to be incompetent. I'm making them out to be vastly inferior to American and most other Western militaries, with good reason.

The internet, directed energy weapons, nuclear weapons, ABMS, ICBMS, nuclear submarines; pretty much every major military technology that's come about in the modern era can be attributed to American military R&D.

There's probably a few billion dollars in waste spending, I'll grant you that. But even that waste spending is still considerably larger (at least 100%) than the entire Chinese military budget.

We don't have to speculate, and it would be literally impossible to hide a trillion dollars in spending. Or that somehow China is leading the charge on new military tech. We may not be able to trust the official numbers that the Chinese government puts out but the very reason we know these numbers are falsified so frequently is because we can check indirectly whether or not they make sense. China spending an extra 910 billion dollars would show up pretty clearly.

No, it's not. War profiteering is when you make money off of a war. Selling crappy mini-fridges at exorbitant rates has nothing to do with warfare.

I do happen to know that China has no leg up on the matter, and in fact would suffer quite greatly due to the absence of a large-scale innovative base and subsequent lack of computer science education. China might be able to muster more hackers than the West, but there's no question as to who is more capable.

Of course we don't have to worry about an attack from China. They would never in a billion years be able to invade us. But more importantly no one likes their agenda and most nations have already been scorned by them, and as I've said before no one will fight to have the voices strangled from our throats.

Damn Internet Explorer. :evil:

Yes, their tech is inferior to the U.S. My points still concede to that. But I still maintain that it is an illusion that a war against China by the U.S. will result in anything but slaughter. China would lose more, but in the end, its inferior tech is still capible of holding back the Americans. In spite of their smaller budget, I do not believe that their R&D are incompetant and that no progress is being made. Just because some of their tech is outdated compared to the tech of the U.S. does not mean that they cannot achieve the same level of the U.S. People continue to maintain that the numbers that China can muster have absolutely no affect other than to result in more casulties on the Chinese's side of a conflict. While other western powers may or may not have better tech, no other than the U.S. can actually stand up to the Chinese. I donno about the hacker situation. American generals frequently complain that deplomacy has not stopped the theft of military secrets from American bases.
There is an essencial difference to 'scorned by' and 'hate'. China may or may not be liked by other countries, but I have only ever heard Americans complaining about China's military growth. For that matter, if China is so inferior, what is the point of this debate? In your mind; it would appear, that in no timeline would the Chinese ever be a threat to the safety of the U.S. in the homeland. So why even bother posting? My point was that the Chinese have enough advanced tech to ward off an American invasion, not that they could invade the U.S. "Nobody likes their agenda"? Nobody like ANYBODY ELSES agenda, except when they are on the winning side of it. Just because militarily, China is rapidly [in progress made] overtaking Western powers [other than the U.S.] doesn't mean that the Western powers will do anything about it. Or can. A military bulk-up is not enough reason to justify acting against China, not even in the U.S.
Will the Chinese ever invade the U.S.? Of course not. Or at least it is unlikely. Even with equal tech, they could not. But neither can the U.S. afford to invade China. Not militarily in a successful war. Not economically, the losses would cause only a short war to occur.

Since I can't double post: about the 'corrupt and authoritarian Chinese government'...
Corrupt? Obviously, but then again, so is every country's government at some point. Autoritarian? Yes, but to an extent there is an election process... within the Party. Most government have authoritarian aspects anyways, or else that they are dysfunctional democracies. I respect their achievements, if not all their actions. The structure that they uphold is not close to my political endgame; per say, but it shows the way to it. Its a damn sight closer to it than the American structure, thats for certain. In a certain way.

China VS USA = probably no winner. I think it can be presumed the war will be mostly on Chinese soil, since the Chinese have not the slightest ability to invade the US. There are only so goddamn many Chinese people...

In an event of nuclear exchange there is obviously no winner.

Thanks for recognizing my point, there would be no winner, China would simply not lose. And like I said before, it would probably only happen on Chinese soil to the southeast about Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau [why Macau ended up in China's hands I will never understand] as well as in Vietnam and its neighbors. In the northeast, it would be on Korea [poor Koreans]. We kind of automatically ruled out a nuclear war on the obvious grounds of the MAD system so... yeah.

debate startings fun...

Okay, well earlier on you were trying to say that China was just as advanced...

Military R&D budget for China is smaller than most multinationals... I don't think they're going to be charging ahead in the field, well, ever.

Nope, it's lack of funding and anti-innovation policies of the government that do that.

Numbers don't mean that much against cruiser launched missiles, complete air superiority, naval bombardment, and vast amounts of artillery. I don't think the US is dumb enough to deploy ground forces directly in China...

What you don't realize is that all of these other countries wouldn't be helping China, they'd be helping us. Just because they can't go man-to-man with China doesn't mean they aren't incredibly potent military powers themselves.

We're not the only ones, and furthermore the vast legions of nations that China has humiliated in diplomatic talks don't have the juevos to call them out on it. Which doesn't mean they don't agree. Plus, as I said, no one likes China's human rights abuses, denial of political and civil freedoms, and violent suppression of religion. Nobody is going to fight for a future where they have to shut up and do what GLORIOUS LEADER says.

The most likely scenario is that China tries to subjugate the democracy of Taiwan. Possibly, but unlikely, they would aid the DPRK in a conflict versus the South, as well. In either case they are the aggressor.

Fine.

This is nonsense. China is the only major power today that throws its citizens into political death camps, brutally silences political opposition, denies its people an actual say in electing the government, and of course oppressing the millions upon millions of religious Chinese.

The way to your political endgame relies on the existence of a corrupt, brutal, authoritarian regime? Might want to check your destination in that case...

Oh yeah, totally. Free speech, free press, a hand in government; who needs any of that BS?

THANK YOU!!! iv'e been saying they would take far more casualties than china.




(@Kal-nice LP's dude, I watch them keep up the good work!)

I seriously doubt that China will risk their entire economy to go on a campaign against Taiwan since they know it will not work. I admit that the Chinese feel strongly about reassimilating Taiwan, but they would have done it already if they could. China keeps N Korea to block AMERICA from getting a closer foothold. They have less qualms about a democratic Korea than they used to and might even embrace one. Just not one that is a puppet to the U.S.

Your point about the other counties do not amount to any reliable conclusion that in a war against China, they will help the U.S. Under such conditions, I seriously doubt that they will help in any way or even condone the act. You allege that the Western powers will unite to fight China based on Human Rights. So why haven't they already? If there is so much consenous on the matter, why have they not lifted a finger?

Your judgement of my political endgame is relying on the assumtion that it resembles the Chinese government's system. It does not, not really. Rather, it relies on the conditions that the government's political structure has created. More specifically, the affect that the policies have had on the populus. In reality, my political endgame would contain a democratic kind of structure, just not one that you would recognize. Remember that I grew up in a democracy, and have bared witness to its drawbacks. Like all political endgames, mine is designed to balence the good with the bad. Essencially, what the Chinese have done would pave the path of least resistance for me.

I was speaking about the strict definition of an authoritarian government, specifically the political elite that exist in one.

Your image of a war against China hardly sounds like a war of liberation. Air superiority? Bombardment? Naval blockades? Sounds more like a war against the people than the government and its structure. And I hardly think destroying all that the Chinese hold dear will make them embrace a system that is forced on them.

Remember that the Chinese have always had an authoritarian-like government. Not just the Communists, but many others. Its been so prevailent a system that their culture has evolved around it and learned to cope with its pros and cons. Impressing a foreign system on them will just result in them eventually going back to the old. And hating you.

How would a war against China come about to you?

@ Crusher
Reread your last sentence on the topic, I think you just contradicted yourself.

There are more than a few jingoistic high-ranking party members and generals in China. They've not backed down on their goal to destroy freedom in Taiwan despite having no legitimate claims there.

South Korea isn't an American puppet. They're an ally of ours, but they aren't controlled by our government and aren't acting in our interests.

Because there's no reason for military conflict. If China war decs Taiwan and subsequently the US, South Korea, and Japan I have no doubts that the rest of the Western world will come to our aid. China's allies are currently limited to tinpot dictatorships running failed states.

So brutal oppression and the absence of political freedom, then.

Well there are three... Republic, representative democracy, and direct democracy. Beyond that you've got parliamentary and presidential systems, along with a few mixes. But the fundamental purpose is the same: one vote is equal to all others. If it lacks that element then it's no democracy.

There are no drawbacks to democracy that are not worth the freedoms it guarantees.

Again, corrupt authoritarian regimes aren't good launching points for a bright future.

That's not the only consequence of the Chinese government. There are very few positives that come at the expense of far more valuable things like freedom.

No one is suggesting that. The most likely scenario, as I've said, is that China will try to force their brutal regime onto the democratic island of Taiwan. The US wouldn't be invading China and the only goal of the war would be to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression.

I was speaking in the context of a military conflict. Obviously we're not planning to just bomb the shit out of random Chinese people. But military targets are fair game.

Again, it's not a war to conquer and subjugate China, it's to prevent their aggression from subjugating other people. We'd win not because of our technology, production, or even military strategy, but because we have the moral high ground and the enemy would know it.

No one should have to live in a society that restricts so many of their liberties in the name of the state. To think that China can't exist as a liberal democratic nation is to consign Chinese people to a racially or culturally inferior status; not cool bro.

Hate to say it but i did, sorry it's a sauna in my house, our air conditioning broke so it's REALLY hot in my room. i meant to say less, but i think that was obvious in my previous rants.

I'm hardly cosigning the Chinese off as inferior. I'm pure Han Chinese for pity's sake! I simply stand by a system that the Chinese people feel comfortable with. The fact that the Chinese people have not rebelled in spite of the 'massive' amount of nations that would 'support a free and democratic China' is telling. There is an old Chinese saying: you cannot enslave a smart man. If the Chinese people saw any real reason to rebel then they would have already. Remember that that is just what the Communists did. And the Nationalists before them. And the White Lotus Clan before them. And the Taiping before them. Not to mention the rebellion against the Mongols rule. When the Chinese reach a point where they feel the necessity to rebel, no amount of political suppression will work. As it is, I don't see any kind of rebellion brewing on a large scale that would topple the current regime. Its not that they CANNOT its that they have no obvious wish to, besides a few isolated democratic groups which do not recieve widespread support. To say that these groups' wishes should override the contentment of the Chinese people is the same as putting the Communist Party of America in power.

That isn't to say that the regime doesn't require change. It is simply that you seem to be in favor of drastic, sudden change, where the Chinese usually do not support that. They dislike any instability and such a change would cause them to balk, especially when it is forced on them from the outside. The change IS occuring, just at a slow pace. The rest of the world will just have to be patient.

'The most likely scenerio' is a purely point of view idea. For example, in my 'most likely scenerio' the U.S. is the aggressor. Realize that the old Party members are dying out. The new members are more influenced by the world. That reduces the likelyhood of a war against Taiwan. Like you said, there is no real reason for war. China wants Taiwan back, but won't go to war with the world to get it.

@ Crusher
Its ok. That is what the edit button is for.
I never said that the Chinese would lose less, the closest I got to that is saying that the Chinese would inflict eqivilant damage. But all around TTD.

Couldn't they just claim that taiwan would be under better rule if they were annexed_ WAIT!!!!!!

How did this all start? The topic was china launches first carrier and were ranting about how they should go to war. I love thsi website :geek:

The problem with that claim is that 'better' is a subjective assessment. Its a politics thing. Its the use of a 'democratic' system v the system that China uses. If that was a viable solution, then we would already live under a united Earth government.

The discussion hasn't really strayed though. The mere fact that the Chinese launched its first carrier is just a jump point for a discussion of its implications, and later the wider military prowess of the Chinese.

china is gonna pwnd you lolololoololololololololol

Subjective assessment? In the most grandiose sense I suppose, but by any reasonable standard living in a democratic and free society is preferable to living in an authoritarian and oppressive society.

Why are you putting democratic in apostrophes?