How much of China could Soviet Union capture in a Sino-Soviet war

The problem the Soviets have with a conventional war against China is that even with their better equipped troops, powerful aviation etc in order to make any advances and contain any counterattacks outside the USSR they are going to need a lot of boots on the ground. As a result they will have to draw from the forces arrayed against NATO and also keeping the lid on in Eastern Europe. Keep it conventional in China at the cost of risking control in Eastern Europe is not something the USSR is going to want to do. The only way the USSR can achieve anything militarily against China without robbing Peter to pay Paul is to use WMD. I doubt the Chinese are well equipped and trained to deal with chemical weapons, and that would be first choice...setting off nukes would be worse, and the fallout would piss off Japan, Korea, and the West Coast of the USA.

IMHO the Soviets might want to actually nip off a few bits for geographic reasons, but actually occupying China?? Insane...defanging it, getting rid of nukes, and installing a friendly communist government if possible, but otherwise nope. Sure there are some empty spots, but the Russians really do not want millions of Han Chinese, or more Muslims to add to their minority issues.
 
I'd say that Nixon's effort to drive a wedge between Russia and China worked out well and was better for our interests than if the Soviets had nuked China and put up a puppet government subservient to Moscow.

Certainly. From the mid-70s to the early 90s, the Chinese were consistent cheerleaders for American foreign policy, when they weren't actively assisting it(as in Cambodia). And that's not even getting into the economic benefits of China opening itself up to western investment(though whether that has really been a boon for ALL Americans, rather than just the ones who invest in or relocate factories to China, is open to debate).
 

kernals12

Banned
Certainly. From the mid-70s to the early 90s, the Chinese were consistent cheerleaders for American foreign policy, when they weren't actively assisting it(as in Cambodia). And that's not even getting into the economic benefits of China opening itself up to western investment(though whether that has really been a boon for ALL Americans, rather than just the ones who invest in or relocate factories to China, is open to debate).
Cheap stuff from China has made us better off.
 
Honestly, at the risk of sounding like the most heartless brute on AH.com, Nixon passed up a golden opportunity.

You admit in your post that you know it's going to upset people, and I'm not really sure what else this adds to the conversation. That's trolling. Don't troll.

Kicked for a week.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia are the easiest due to the ethnic diversity and relatively low population. Manchuria is doable because it's a simple matter of cutting it off at Shanhaiguan (where the Great Wall meets the Yellow Sea), but the Soviets would be fools to annex it with its 60 million+ Han Chinese population. Anything else dooms the Soviet Army to the Japanese WWII experience.

It'd be a good option for Moscow not to break any territory off of the PRC (not even ethnic minority regions), but instead set up a third Chinese regime alongside the PRC and ROC that follows Soviet-style socialism and lays claim to all of China. A large city in Manchuria like Shenyang or Changchun could serve as the capital; meanwhile, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia would be "Chinese" autonomous regions" but effectively separate from PRC (Manchuria) governance. This way the Soviet Union can say that it has no designs on Chinese sovereignty, but is simply curbing Maoist deviancy.


Let's call this, the Chinese "Hun Sen" regime. Like what the Vietnamese were able to pull off in Cambodia despite Viet-Khmer national hatred.
 
Of all the possible 1968 winners (LBJ, RFK, McCarthy, McGovern, EMK, Nixon, Romney, Reagan, Rookerfeller) I really doubt any of them would want thousands of tons of radiation in the atmosphere that would cause global crop failures and slowly drift west over the pacific. Or the resulting millions of Chinese refugees that need a place to go.

...global crop failures because the soviets nuked the chinese arsenal? fallout drifting over the pazific as significant risk? who are you, carl sagan?

Passing over the hundreds of millions who would die in China, you do realize the effects of the attack wouldn't be isolated to China. Even a limited attack would cause a substantial nuclear winter.

even a full scale global "launch everything we have" by all nations combined wouldn't cause a "substantinal" nuclear winter,let alone a limited attack by the soviets against china in the 60s.
 

Manman

Banned
They could take Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and the rest of central
Asia but they would leave the rest as it's to filled with Han Chinese.

It also depends if it goes nuclear in which case Vietnam would get some of the Chinese land to the north, Tibet would go independent and depending on the crop failure more of china might go and secede.
 

kernals12

Banned
I just thought of another thing about this Sino-Soviet nuclear war. Who's to say that Mao wouldn't nuke Tokyo, Seoul, Saigon, Taipei, Hong Kong and New Delhi as a giant "F*ck you all to hell!"?
 
I just thought of another thing about this Sino-Soviet nuclear war. Who's to say that Mao wouldn't nuke Tokyo, Seoul, Saigon, Taipei, Hong Kong and New Delhi as a giant "F*ck you all to hell!"?

He could, but the U.S., Great Britain and France would almost certainly come in on the Soviet side and plaster China to radioactive glass in response.
 
I just thought of another thing about this Sino-Soviet nuclear war. Who's to say that Mao wouldn't nuke Tokyo, Seoul, Saigon, Taipei, Hong Kong and New Delhi as a giant "F*ck you all to hell!"?

China at that time had very few nukes,even less missiles which were also extremly short-ranged,their weapons had a relativly low yield (the first hydrogen bomb was tested only 2 years before,and miniturazation was not very advanced) and their arsenal (or at least their command and control) was likely vulnerable to a first strike. and why would he waste his few weapons that can actually give the soviets a headache on inflicting varying levels of inconvinience on the guys who aren't currently mopping the floor with his army (but very well might join now)?
 

kernals12

Banned
China at that time had very few nukes,even less missiles which were also extremly short-ranged,their weapons had a relativly low yield (the first hydrogen bomb was tested only 2 years before,and miniturazation was not very advanced) and their arsenal (or at least their command and control) was likely vulnerable to a first strike. and why would he waste his few weapons that can actually give the soviets a headache on inflicting varying levels of inconvinience on the guys who aren't currently mopping the floor with his army (but very well might join now)?
He would know that he was screwed anyway so why not take out as many people as he could? And even a low yield nuke is extremely powerful.
 
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kernals12

Banned
He could, but the U.S., Great Britain and France would almost certainly come in on the Soviet side and plaster China to radioactive glass in response.
The Soviet first strike would already do that, so that wouldn't make a difference.
 

kernals12

Banned
It's almost amusing to think that for a time, Moscow perceived a country with a primative military and whose government had a slightly different interpretation of marxism as a bigger threat than a stridently anti-communist country that had a state of the art military with intercontinental ballistic missiles ready to wipe out Soviet cities at a moment's notice.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
It's almost amusing to think that for a time, Moscow perceived a country with a primative military and whose government had a slightly different interpretation of marxism as a bigger threat than a stridently anti-communist country that had a state of the art military with intercontinental ballistic missiles ready to wipe out Soviet cities at a moment's notice.
I don’t think that’s strange at all. China was right next door and could threaten Russian territorial integrity. Besides, the Soviets were probably thinking long term. They knew that the Chinese military wouldn’t stay primitive.
 
Almost certainly, though they'd likely establish them a puppets rather than incorporate them as SSRs. But that's after they burn a decent part of China to the ground in nuclear fire.

Something interesting, OTL the Soviets had Puyi (the last emperor of China) as prisoner, who constantly sent letters to Stalin asking him to allow him to live like the emperor he was.

In this scenario Puyi might very well get his wish and sent to Manchuria, again.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
...global crop failures because the soviets nuked the chinese arsenal? fallout drifting over the pazific as significant risk? who are you, carl sagan?

Actually, do you have any articles or authors to recommend who demonstrate Carl Sagan's "nuclear winter" hypothesis is BS?

---but that's a digression---

I'd presume the Soviets would WMD targets in China only, and have no reason to go after North Korea, North Vietnam or Albania even if those countries expressed a more pro-Beijing line.

Between chemical and nuclear weapons for disarming strikes and for tactical uses like wiping out fortifications and formations, how much contamination is realistic for points east of China, like the Pacific Rim countries, the Pacific islands and then the west coast of the Americas?

I suppose it's possible China could be disarmed totally by the initial strike and not get a chance to deliver any nukes of its own. But if it did get a few off, where would these likely be? On Soviet spearheads in country? A Soviet or Mongolian border city? or a city deep within the USSR?

Did the Chinese have chemical weapons stockpiles of any magnitude at this time?
 
Could North Korea join in and gain the Korean inhabited areas or the old border for the Korean Kingdoms in Manchuria

Three_Kingdoms_Korean_peninsula_Chinese.png


china_ling_90.jpg
 
Could North Korea join in and gain the Korean inhabited areas or the old border for the Korean Kingdoms in Manchuria

Three_Kingdoms_Korean_peninsula_Chinese.png


china_ling_90.jpg

Very risky, considering how equal the two rivals are. Not to mention, the Chinese could simply give the ok to UN-SK forces to reunify Korea in order to ease the burden on the new front.
 
Definitely. Things can go to hell after that, but definitely the Soviet forces could slice through border areas.

After any length of time, fighting in China would get messy for the Soviets but I will disagree that all Chinese people would enthusiastically sacrifice themselves and sting in unison like a beehive collective on behalf of Queen Bee Mao.

There would be a substantial number of people and party officials willing to acquiesce to regime change to get a chance at relief from Cultural Revolution chaos and the Red Guards. The red guards themselves would be largely useless militarily too.

On the nuclear aspect, said the USsR does its strike on China anyway. Does Nixon go mad bomber on the Soviets right away, guaranteeing nuking of American, European and Japanesecities for Mao's sake?
I don't know about that? I imagine that many Chinese would rather die than after be under foreign domination again like how it was during the century of humilation. Especially considering how Russia was one of the powers that China had to lose significant sovereignty to.
 
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