America Be Watching With The Popcorn: A Sino-Soviet War TL
- Thread starter theflyingmongoose
- Start date
I understand why many people believe the Soviet Union will come to be seen as a rogue state and China will try to take revenge,but I can't really see that happening for a number of reasons.
1.It is in the interest of most of Asia to never have China reunite again,or to delay it as long as possible.During its short existence the PRC slaughtered massive amounts of its own population and destabilized much of the region,It started a nuclear confrontation with 2 nuclear powers by nuking Russia and violating an ultimatum by the U.S. forbidding tactical nuclear warfare,Persecuted the pointless war in the first place and generally brought back ancient memories of Chinese hegemony over Asia which most countries would want to avoid,And then there is the fact that Tibet,Xinjiang,Mongolia,and possibly even Manchuria have no interest in being integral parts of China again given how that worked out last time.And the fact that it is no longer communist won't just completely change India's,Japan's or some theoretical post-communist Russia's opinion on the matter of reunification with its periphery.I think,sadly,that it won't be until the mid-21st century before anyone refers to "China" as a single country instead as a region.
2.China started it,or at least,was seen as having done so,now this doesn't make the Soviet reprisal even remotely justified but unfortunately if we're looking at this realistically most people in the 70's wouldn't have cared.China was very much seen as a backwards dictatorship and massive numbers of people dying just didn't have the same impact then as it would today.This doesn't mean they escape any scrutiny,but,pragmatically most countries aren't going to start an embargo on a superpower because it retaliated to a nuclear strike on its own soil by an insane dictatorship.If anything the example of an honest-to-god nuclear war will make most people far more wary of any kind of great power confrontation.
3.China very well may become indebted to the soviets,They will have to rebuild somehow and just relying on American or greater asian aid may not be enough.This is especially true if a detente occurs or America finds funding/policing such a vast area to be too tiresome for whatever reason.The soviets meanwhile will probably be fully willing to give back some land and even a little assistance in return for,say,not hosting American troops on their soil,they may even just be eager to rid themselves of some the too badly irradiated and wartorn provinces.None of this would mean they would have anything but violent contempt for the soviets,but they have to have some kind of relationship with their northern neighbors to receive aid or get rid of the impression that a strong China -in any form- is a mortal threat to Russia.Basically the geopolitics of Asia sans the PRC is vastly different from what we would recognize,it wouldn't as simple as China coming back together under the aegis of the U.S. and all of Asia entering into an anti-soviet alliance then converting instantly into liberal democracy,not anymore than if China collapsed today.
1.It is in the interest of most of Asia to never have China reunite again,or to delay it as long as possible.During its short existence the PRC slaughtered massive amounts of its own population and destabilized much of the region,It started a nuclear confrontation with 2 nuclear powers by nuking Russia and violating an ultimatum by the U.S. forbidding tactical nuclear warfare,Persecuted the pointless war in the first place and generally brought back ancient memories of Chinese hegemony over Asia which most countries would want to avoid,And then there is the fact that Tibet,Xinjiang,Mongolia,and possibly even Manchuria have no interest in being integral parts of China again given how that worked out last time.And the fact that it is no longer communist won't just completely change India's,Japan's or some theoretical post-communist Russia's opinion on the matter of reunification with its periphery.I think,sadly,that it won't be until the mid-21st century before anyone refers to "China" as a single country instead as a region.
2.China started it,or at least,was seen as having done so,now this doesn't make the Soviet reprisal even remotely justified but unfortunately if we're looking at this realistically most people in the 70's wouldn't have cared.China was very much seen as a backwards dictatorship and massive numbers of people dying just didn't have the same impact then as it would today.This doesn't mean they escape any scrutiny,but,pragmatically most countries aren't going to start an embargo on a superpower because it retaliated to a nuclear strike on its own soil by an insane dictatorship.If anything the example of an honest-to-god nuclear war will make most people far more wary of any kind of great power confrontation.
3.China very well may become indebted to the soviets,They will have to rebuild somehow and just relying on American or greater asian aid may not be enough.This is especially true if a detente occurs or America finds funding/policing such a vast area to be too tiresome for whatever reason.The soviets meanwhile will probably be fully willing to give back some land and even a little assistance in return for,say,not hosting American troops on their soil,they may even just be eager to rid themselves of some the too badly irradiated and wartorn provinces.None of this would mean they would have anything but violent contempt for the soviets,but they have to have some kind of relationship with their northern neighbors to receive aid or get rid of the impression that a strong China -in any form- is a mortal threat to Russia.Basically the geopolitics of Asia sans the PRC is vastly different from what we would recognize,it wouldn't as simple as China coming back together under the aegis of the U.S. and all of Asia entering into an anti-soviet alliance then converting instantly into liberal democracy,not anymore than if China collapsed today.
He promised to democratize after the defeat of the communists. His propaganda chief Weng Sheng was an idealist. I am not saying a total western style system immedately but there would be some liberalization.
Without the fear of communism, I think Ian smith will make an earlier deal with Muzorewa and Chirau.
I expect a gradual liberalization, loosely following the path OTL but slower and roughly in pace with the stability of China. I'd give it until at least the 90s before China counts as a 'democratic' nation, and that's even assuming the ROC is able to unite the rest of mainland China in short order (1980 at the latest). Naturally, liberal reforms can be rolled back in the name of stability, hence the likely delay compared to OTL.
I am not sure what do you mean by National Extermination and attempted genocide. Only a fraction of the Chinese population would have been killed in those strikes, as the author mentioned 500,000 civilian deaths in China let's take it. 500,000 out of 500 million isn't an extermination, many countries got 0.1% or more of their civilian population killed in war. It's just a modern taboo about bombing civilians and going to war that affects our thinking.
You justify the bombing of German cities by giving the example of Rotterdam and Blitz. But the Allied Bombing killed far more people and firebombing of cities was something that the Germans didn't attempt so wasn't that an incredible escalation. The Japs never directly attacked civilian targets, notwithstanding their occupied territories so wasn't the firebombing of Tokyo national extermination hell the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima national extermination.
You make sucha noise about the rapid escalation of the war by the Soviets but have you wondered that that the slow escalation by either side would have ended the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction and would have made nukes just another weapon.
The Nuclear weapons made so that the threat of disproportionate response prevents any use of them. There is nothing lunatic or psychotic about that.
For a country which is not in a territorial dispute can't understand the mentality of a country that has one. National pride triumphs such logic so many wars have been started because of minor territorial disputes.
You mentioned the threat to Hong Kong(Which they didn't even hit) and that the Soviets don't care, did the Western Allies care when the bombed Swiss towns in the Second World War.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that the Soviets are led by madmen as what they did was really the true manifestation of Nuclear war scenario which everyone expected. This is going to reinforce the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction than anything else. It was just that due to lack of proper delivery systems and very less number of nukes that the Soviet Union wasn't destroyed which will be taken into account by future Nuclear war planners.
McPherson
Banned
20 targets especially those clustered in the eastern Yangtze River Valley... Figure it out? Let us look at it.
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100 -150 million dead. That would be a lowball estimate.
Download Free World Population Maps
100 -150 million dead. That would be a lowball estimate.
McPherson
Banned
The Escalation Ladder to War & Situational Awareness ...
Detente with psychopaths is not a workable strategic option at all. Only the risk and willingness to go to the limit will faze such crazies.Jumping 1 or 2 levels in escalation does not matter, the only thing that does is ending the conflict.
Willingness to use those weapons are directly related to Detente. It shows willingness to escalate disproportionately to a nuclear attack, which means either a conflict remains conventional or completely nuclear. This makes it clear that to launch a nuclear attack on any scale all but ensures full retaliation.
The people who would escalate the Cold War directly between US and USSR would be stupid and looked at as senseless warmongers of apocalypse, while those in favor of Detente becomes sensible.
MAD becomes absolute and therefore escalation is counter productive. Hotter means death, colder means life easy enough idea.
Okay. I feel like I need to state the canon death numbers.
First, most northern cities were hit with R-14 Medium Ballistic Missiles (2 MT yield) and more southern (or major) cities were hit with 5 MT bombs delivered by R-16 ICBMs.
Knowing that, we can move on to casualty estimates.
~155,000,000 (includes eventual) killed.
The Chinese population at the time was ~825 Million, so about 19% were killed.
First, most northern cities were hit with R-14 Medium Ballistic Missiles (2 MT yield) and more southern (or major) cities were hit with 5 MT bombs delivered by R-16 ICBMs.
Knowing that, we can move on to casualty estimates.
~155,000,000 (includes eventual) killed.
The Chinese population at the time was ~825 Million, so about 19% were killed.
Damn that's a lot of deaths... I don't know how China is going to recover from that loss of lives.
McPherson
Banned
Thank you. I was not sure if this situation and the magnitude of the war-crime described had been made clear. I was absolutely appalled when I did the target distribution upstream.
Paraguay lost two thirds of their population during the war of tripple alliance and recovered, many countries during the era of the black death lost up to a third of their population to the plague and recovered. China could recover from this given time it would suck of course but the damage isn't nation wide and the country can rebuild and regroup.
And they also have the advantage of the US helping the ROC rebuild the south which helps. That said China after this is going to be one of the most anti communist nations on earth.
I suppose, but then again they didn't get Nuked multiple times, plus the Chinese population has already been damaged by the Great Leap Forward (I think that was the name for it).
I guess, the ROC probably has an easier time rebuilding while PRC won't.
Yeah, with 20% of its population dead from the nuclear attacks alone China isn’t going to doing too good anytime soon. And with the collapse of the state into a second warlord era things will only get worse due to violence, hunger, and disease. I can definitely see China being a mess to this very day.
@West Except they didn’t get nuked and have their nation collapse into a collection of warlords. This will slow any recovery down and out China back quite a bit. All of this after the Great Leap Forward. And the US/ROC are only operating in a small area in the south so that aid isn’t go off to help most of China.
@West Except they didn’t get nuked and have their nation collapse into a collection of warlords. This will slow any recovery down and out China back quite a bit. All of this after the Great Leap Forward. And the US/ROC are only operating in a small area in the south so that aid isn’t go off to help most of China.
Don’t forget that Poland and what is today Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania lost near to or greater than 20% of their population in WWII.
True but you have to consider how many people would make an attempt to get to ROC-held territory if it meant escaping fallout and/or warlords as well as getting any form of aid. Southern China could see a massive migration and worsening refugee crisis as people make their way to Guandong over the months and years following the war.
During the Great Leap Backward Hong Kong and the Mainland had this kind of issue.