China is now a collection of warlords fighting eachother for mastery of whatever they can get their hands on. Between the years if not decades of fighting ahead they’ll also be dealing with famine and refugees and what not. China will be lucky if it can reunify and start rebuilding within the next decade or two.
America Be Watching With The Popcorn: A Sino-Soviet War TL
- Thread starter theflyingmongoose
- Start date
You also said “then the 21st century might actually see a China in a much better shape than most posters so far assume”. Which I still disagree with, even if they reunite or are split like Germany within a few years I think it’ll take decades to reach its pre nuke levels. Losing two dozens cities, several territories, and a third or more of your population is not something that you can bounce back from easily.
The really crazy thing is that, in terms of proportion of the population killed, China's had worse.
Crunching some numbers here based off of Wikipedia for % of population killed:
Taiping Rebellion ~16%
An Lushan Rebellion ~14% to 40% depending on who you ask
Yellow Turban Rebellion ~11%
Qing Conquest ~8.5% over a long period of time
The hardest two are the Mongol conquest andThree Kingdom era though.
The Three Kingdoms last 80 years and killed 40 million with a population of around 60 million when it began. However, due to the timespan it’s hard to give a percentage. The Western Jin had a census that registered only 16 million (a modern estimate is closer to 38 million as the official census wasn’t very good) immediately after the conflict ended.
The Mongols had a long campaign against the Song and forced a lot of population southward so it’s kind of hard to even begin to count what was due to warfare.
Basically, this event was the equivalent of the worst events in Chinese history packed into a few weeks instead of years/decades.
The chinese people will be very xenophobic, yet they need aid, so they must choose the latter to survive. The century of humiliation has mostly ended it with a bang.
The problem is that building functioning nuclear weapons is a very difficult task and any that survived the war are probably now unusable, or will be soon. Such scientists and engineers can't without a certain level of infrastructure nowhere exists anywhere in the PRC.
Official Casualty Numbers
CHINA:
Military K: ~700,000
Military I: ~1,200,000
Civilian:
-Nukes (includes radiation sickness, etc): ~140,000,000
-Conventional Bombing: ~1,000,000
-Famine: ~85,000,000
-Disease: ~15,000,000
-Warlords Fighting: ~10,000,000
-Attemping to Flee: ~1,000,000
-Other: ~1,000,000
Total Chinese Casualties: ~258,500,000 out of ~825,000,000
About ~31.5% of the total population.
Plus, we have migration numbers:
Fleeing to neighboring countries: ~30,000,000
So ~35% total killed. If we add those injured (so much that they can't work or are hampered in those efforts), we could easily reach an even larger reduction in potential workers.
USSR:
Military K: 250,000
Military I: 900,000
Civilian:
-Conventional Bombing: ~50,000
-War Crimes: ~15,000
-Nukes: ~1,000,000
-Other: ~100,000
Total USSR Casualties (not including injured): ~1,400,000 out of ~240,000,000
About ~0.5% of the population.
Even with injuries that is only about 1% that is severely affected.
Total Deaths: ~260,000,000 for the whole war.
Military K: ~700,000
Military I: ~1,200,000
Civilian:
-Nukes (includes radiation sickness, etc): ~140,000,000
-Conventional Bombing: ~1,000,000
-Famine: ~85,000,000
-Disease: ~15,000,000
-Warlords Fighting: ~10,000,000
-Attemping to Flee: ~1,000,000
-Other: ~1,000,000
Total Chinese Casualties: ~258,500,000 out of ~825,000,000
About ~31.5% of the total population.
Plus, we have migration numbers:
Fleeing to neighboring countries: ~30,000,000
So ~35% total killed. If we add those injured (so much that they can't work or are hampered in those efforts), we could easily reach an even larger reduction in potential workers.
USSR:
Military K: 250,000
Military I: 900,000
Civilian:
-Conventional Bombing: ~50,000
-War Crimes: ~15,000
-Nukes: ~1,000,000
-Other: ~100,000
Total USSR Casualties (not including injured): ~1,400,000 out of ~240,000,000
About ~0.5% of the population.
Even with injuries that is only about 1% that is severely affected.
Total Deaths: ~260,000,000 for the whole war.
McPherson
Banned
Far worse than my initial estimates. That seems to indicate at least 300-500 launch events. That makes things "interesting" when Nixon confronts Brezhnev. The American has the upper hand, massively so.
See those target sets? Nobody stops to actually look at how the Russian population and infrastructure is distributed and how vulnerable it is to as few as 50 launch events. This is not a good thing. One, if one is sane, should be circumspect and very cautious with something as UGLY and blatantly evil as nuclear warfare, but one should also consider one's own position on the receiving end of ICBMs and SLBMS. It is quite apparent that Brezhnev ITTL is reckless and a madman.
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the Americans can claim higher moral ground. I am also interested what will be the meeting of Nixon and Brezhnev too.
There was no organized killing the Chinese that one term it as Genocide. Nuclear exchange hardly qualifies as such. Note that the 140 million figure includes death, sick, other radiation related illness and the disabled. Death alone would probably be around 30-40 million. The 140 million casualty mark as a proportion similar to hat the Soviets took in the Second World War.
Yes this vulnerability is what keeps the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction alive and maintains global peace. Similarly the America's lesser vulnerability is balanced out by greater numbers of Soviet nukes.
Yes because China didn't have missiles it could not hit the Soviets and it paid the price for going toe to toe with the Soviet Union in a nuclear war. But the Americans can hit back and knows that it can be hit by the Soviet Union which makes the difference.
No rational person would because he proved that the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction is valid and nuclear war between the two superpowers is to be avoided at all costs as in that case the whole world collapses into chaos. If anyone is to be remembered as a madman it will be Mao. Little by little escalation would have crippled the Soviet Union and erased China. Imagine a slowly escalating Nuclear war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact 1) Germany ravaged and ruined 2) other Warsaw Pact and NATO members get their cities blown up 3) Soviet Union and America gets their cities blown up. I don't think that is an outcome one would want. The concept of MAD alone can prevent it.
The thing is Brezhnev certainly held the upper hand. For every Russian killed by a nuke, many more Chinese could be killed. When has 'being sane' and 'being reasonable' been a common pair of traits among Soviet leaders.
Also, it doesn't help that the primary Chinese delivery system are knock-off Russian bombers.
Also, it doesn't help that the primary Chinese delivery system are knock-off Russian bombers.
McPherson
Banned
Any rational estimate of nuclear weapons effects includes the secondary and tertiary effects. To take Hiroshima as the first example, it is a rough guess that blast pressure and thermal effect killed up to 30,000 human beings. It is further speculated that post explosion injuries may have accounted for another 30,000 deaths. Then there are the deaths from infrastructure failure, lack of care and access to water, food and shelter. Call that another 10,000. Total ~70,000 deaths. If we postulate 100-150 million from blast and thermal effect as the thread author of this ITTL claims (I had figured about 40 to 60 launch events with 1st, 2nd and 3rd order effects, so I had estimated all effects to = 100-150 million.), then 2nd and 3rd order effects from weather, famine, disease, failure of care, and infrastructure support collapse, could yield these kinds of predictable casualties, but would require a much more massive saturation launch effort for the assigned target loci. One would almost "believe" genocide is the Russian objective of such a bombardment, rather than a war winning exercise.
Shrug. The insanity of nuclear war thus averted by fear of the predictable results only works between rational sane peers. It is a difficult workable concept to drive across to lunatics and fanatics, but one hopes that the lunatics and fanatics who hold control over some nuclear weapons (And there are lunatics who have them.) understand that nuclear weapon release is a guaranteed death sentence for the idiot who initiates first use, and for the other imbecile who disproportionately slaughters in response out of revenge. Nuclear weapons are not just a bigger bang. They are weapons of mass murder and pure terrorism.
If this scenario with the Nixon warning that America would not stand by and let China be destroyed, plays out as it did and is described ITTL, just what is the message here, now that the bluff is called? How is another 100-150,000,000 dead human beings going to change anything?
But the lunatic, Breshnev, has called Nixon's bluff. (^^^) and he apparently got away with it? What now? I have a few ideas, but these are not the author's ideas. I would be interested in how he handles it.
I understand it's not my place to criticize the timeline, but I find it hard to believe that China gets any strategic hits on the USSR given their massive superiority in intelligence, equipment and technology.
I also think Brezhnev insane is odd considering it was China who escalated everything multiple times. If anything, the Soviets held back quite a few times.
I also think Brezhnev insane is odd considering it was China who escalated everything multiple times. If anything, the Soviets held back quite a few times.
McPherson
Banned
Isn’t this a bit too much? I mean I can’t see China coming back from this for a long time.
Concerning China's losses. I wonder about one thing. By nuking cities Soviets might have killed unproportionally large number of best educated Chinese: scientists, administrators, doctors, teachers, lawyers, engineers, trained workers etc. Usually they are concentrated mostly (not only, of course) in large cities. OTOH, the Cultural Revolution sent many of them to small villages. Nevertheless, I think that China lost a very large part of their educated class - if not by nukes, then to famine. Many highly educated people (like university professors) has few skills allowing them to survive in post-apocalyptic China.
And that it have a large impact on reconstruction.
And that it have a large impact on reconstruction.
What's the timescale on those numbers? I wouldn't have thought 30 million people would be physically capable of leaving China inside of ten years without some mass, organized evacuation effort.
I think dislocation numbers have been wildly inflated, after a natural disaster most people who flee an area, no matter how devastated, usually come back once the immediate danger is over. Getting bombed seems to have similar behaviour, people come back to rebuild after the bombing is over. The good thing about a nuclear strike ('good thing', there's a laugh!) is that it's usually just one detonation unless your opponent is trying to be very thorough (cough, US SAC, cough). Knowing Soviet accuracy I wouldn't be surprised if half those cities are only partly destroyed because the warhead nearly missed entirely. Assuming '0% duds, 100% bullseyes' is a great way to maximize death figures but a lazy assumption for a timeline.
I'm not being pie-in-the-sky optimistic here, I just don't want people to forget the historical precedent of natural disasters, the majority of European and Japanese cities all-but-levelled from conventional bombing, and the two very applicable examples of cities being hit by nuclear weapons in a nation already on the verge of collapse. It might take years to 'return to normal' but it'll happen. I don't think two decades for China to get its feet back under itself and return to the relative position it was in 1970 is unreasonable.
I think dislocation numbers have been wildly inflated, after a natural disaster most people who flee an area, no matter how devastated, usually come back once the immediate danger is over. Getting bombed seems to have similar behaviour, people come back to rebuild after the bombing is over. The good thing about a nuclear strike ('good thing', there's a laugh!) is that it's usually just one detonation unless your opponent is trying to be very thorough (cough, US SAC, cough). Knowing Soviet accuracy I wouldn't be surprised if half those cities are only partly destroyed because the warhead nearly missed entirely. Assuming '0% duds, 100% bullseyes' is a great way to maximize death figures but a lazy assumption for a timeline.
Maybe not so much as you might think. I agree entirely China's probably lost the majority of its university-equivalent trained population, but for reconstruction you need trades and crafts people. There's going to be plenty of those left, and just about anyone can help shift rubble or carry new building materials.
I'm not being pie-in-the-sky optimistic here, I just don't want people to forget the historical precedent of natural disasters, the majority of European and Japanese cities all-but-levelled from conventional bombing, and the two very applicable examples of cities being hit by nuclear weapons in a nation already on the verge of collapse. It might take years to 'return to normal' but it'll happen. I don't think two decades for China to get its feet back under itself and return to the relative position it was in 1970 is unreasonable.