Inst

zraver, gunnut, please read the end of the article. It concludes by stating that while Americans are good at tactics and Russians are good at operations, the Chinese good at strategy.

I'm of the opinion that China is a weak country and should play its diplomatic cards as such. Every time it starts a war or does something aggressive, it is basing its strength on conditions; there's always some factor that prevents its opponent from reacting with full force and punishing China for its arrogance. This is all fine and dandy when you know what you're doing, but it's damn risky. Sooner or later this arrogance is going to blow up in your face and you won't have the mass to endure the blow.

LCol, once again, thanks for dealing with this idiot. But as I've said, you're being too subtle. I can't understand your point; reading CDF, CHF, and WAB, I'm familiar with most of the details, but only reading this, I can make no inference. I still can't see this as Chinese, instead of merely being among the 90th percentile of decision quality.

The thing is, the PRC has never been a strong country. Internally, it lacked technology, infrastructure, and economy. It didn't have foreign capital, I recall from a CCTV 9 program that China had to send boatloads of agricultural goods in order to receive a single small shipment of capital goods. Technology-wise, it could get a nuclear bomb, but the air force never got enough training and the planes were either obsolete or imported from Russia. And in infrastructure... the cities were tolerably provisioned, but until the next few decades, China will remain a primarily rural country. The 67 33 statistic. Militarily speaking, it lacked force projection because it didn't really have a military. The technology was always lacking, the training was insufficient, and the tactical and operational doctrine was inferior. The only way you could say it was militarily strong was in the fact that, while you could destroy China, you couldn't capture China. Occupying a large and densely populated area filled with idiotized nationalists, that's just idiocy.

In such a situation, what would American or Soviet leaders have done in response to an encirclement? I still stand by what I say, that Chinese strategic philosophy is among the world's most sophisticated. The action of invading Vietnam is what I'd imagine to be, out of a pool of 10 choices, the best possible choice. Out of a hundred choices, it would be among the ...

Inst

Among a hundred choices, invading Vietnam would be among the top ten (this is what I mean by 90th percentile). So if we used what gunnut or zraver would consider a direct approach, such as spending even more money on military spending, or militarizing the society further, it would be more costly than invading Vietnam and leave China in an inferior position.

zraver

I do not think China is better at strategy, just different. The end result is do you achieve your goals. America has pulled off some master strokes of diplomacy that rival anything ever achieved by anyone. It just different from China's. GN called it right that Chinese culture conditions a certain mindset and this mindset conditions a certain thinking that prefers the indirect approach. Is this mindset better? Who is trying to get to the moon, and who has been there. A lot of people forget that for all the direct action the US had to take an indirect approach- going to the moon, Marshall Plan, Kissinger's mission etc. One could even argue that the increasing but informal ties between India and the US are the indirect approach. As Russian control over Indian arms decreases China loses a possible political lever china can possibly employ in a US-Taiwan vs PRC dispute to keep India quiet about its own issues with China. Plus as India gains strength China is forced to devote more and more precious high tech air and naval assets to keep a balance of power which means less to menance Taiwan. Same story for Pakistan's increasing ties with the US. It indirectly lessens China's ability to menace India via a third party forcing China to take on more of the load itself. In this case the Chinese cat is busy swatting at a bunch of (toy) mice while the pet owner slowly pulls the strings across the floor for thier enjoyment. Yes the cat can scratch the owner, but if the cat doesn't play the owner has a wide range of options to retaliate. Throw the cat out (cut off access to markets), swat it with a rolled up newspaper to putting the cat down completely (war), getting a new cat (setting up rivalries with other markets) etc.

zraver

I do not think that China does not know what its doing, only that right now the west holds all the face cards. You can win with a pair of twos if the other side blinks but its a whole lot easier to win with 3 kings and a pair of Queens

Inst

The thesis of the article is that the Chinese theory of strategy is more advanced than its Western and Russian counterparts. It is more in detail, and has a greater breadth. It accepts both conventional and unconventional responses.

The reason that I said that the Chinese strategic thinking was superior was because the Vietnam example was brought up. I couldn't really think of a superior response to China's situation in 1979, and if a Western or Russian power could not engineer a similar response, it would be by definition inferior.

On the other hand, I do in some degree doubt this conclusion. Saying that China is superior in any respect is not an easy conclusion for me. I'd like to believe that if the United States or Russia were in a similar situation, a similar response would be enacted. Is there an efficient response that could be classified as a direct approach?

I'd like to see if this hypothesis can hold water. China in its history, is as prone to direct responses as any other country, see the Chinese colonization of Vietnam, the Chinese invasion of Korea, the Chinese defense of Korea against the Japanese, the building of the Great Wall to defend against the Jurchen threat... If there's anything culturally unique, then it's that when Chinese states are in an inferior position, they tend to play their hands relatively well, that is, when they are in a weak position, they switch off to indirect strategic approaches.

The main problem with the Chinese approach is that it's autistic. It doesn't work well with others. You end up with such crap as having to fight the Americans down to the last Vietnamese, or fighting the Indians down to the last Pakistani. In order to preserve secrecy, flexibility, and speed, your "allies" can't know what you're doing and what you're planning to do. The United States, on the other hand, can't assume this posture, or if it does, it will damage its international relations with this posture, as it has in its handling and execution of the Iraq war.

Dreadnought

I certainly wouldn't state that China is superior to us in strategy. If memory serves another country long ago felt the very same way until they were dumb enough to attack us. The end result speaks for itself. We dont need to fight China in jungle warfare as in Vietnam. We have other more direct methods available that would certainly close the noose on our "superior" thinking friends..

Do we seem like we are affected by being unpopular and doing the job that everybody knows needs to be done but yet wont do it because they are to afraid to. I think our posture suites us dam fine. And if you didnt notice terrorism is getting its ass handed to it in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One thing we are very experienced in....Time and what it does to an advasary when you remain a constant.

__________________
Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

xinhui

This holiday seasons gave me the blues.........

anyways, One of the problem with the articles I have is that they tends to generalized the "chinese-ness" if there is such a thing. I would perfect the good Col would use "PRC leadership" instead. surely, the mindset of the PRC leaders differed from that of the KMT/Republican/Qing/Ming thinkings/thinkers. (Neo-Sun Tze-ian?) In China, different school of strategy were used at different period of time, I would be careful on over overgeneralizing it.

Master Sun stated "The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected." However, for both Mao and Deng, war is politic by another means.

xinhui

Init,

There are number of good works done in English about PRC's pattern of use of force, the one done by RAND is free for download off the net.

There is a pattern if one would draw it, that PRC used force in a position of the weak instead of the strong (zraver already hinted at that) when the PRC leadership (Mao/Deng) in a stronger position, they tend to wait.

And, most importantly, they defined victory by political means, not military. Not all actions were successful, some back fired badly, such as the 1954 shelling of Jinmen and the 1996 military ex off Taiwan.

Here are some examples.

Chinese civil war, especially the Manchurian camping: Mao send his under trained fourth field army north (remember, they were not trained to fight conventional warfare at that time) with a purpose to destroy the KMT economy before it has any chance to rebuild by forcing Jiang to print money he does not have to pay for the campaign. At the beginning the fourth field army only numbered 60,000, while Deng’s 2nd field army while less equipped, were numbered above 100,000 ready to strike Central China, the place to get new recruit and food. While Central China could not match northern industrial base of Manchuria, but Mao is in for a long fight and man power is more important to him. Even if KMT would win at Manchuria, they will be extremely overstrained.


Korea,
Again, PRC was the weaker player, they saw an opening and they went for it. While PVA suffered great causalities, Politically speaking, PRC gained a great deal.

India,
PRC viewed itself as the weaker opponent as its history always referenced back to the failure of the Great Leap Forward. Troops of the 18th army group whom were mostly ex-KMT troops had not gotten their paid in months, its commander Hua had no love for Mao, whom was purged during CPCR for speaking against him. The promised farm land of Xinjiang was not the greatest farm land in the world that is for sure.

The 1969 crash with the Soviet Union, one can debate this one, but I think PRC lost more politically then it gained. I would consider that one a counter example.

OOE can fill in with the Sino-Vietnam war of 1984.

As for waiting, the current situation off South China Sea, PRC seems to take a strong stand but prefer to wait; generally speaking, same seems to hold for Taiwan as well.

xinhui

It is the economy.

zraver

It's not just the economy for China. The PRC has a lot of major issues long term with a lot of other nations. The US push for democracy is a direct challenge to the CCP's mandate from Heaven as is Taiwan. Long term issues with Japan, Russia, Korea. irredentist issues with India and Taiwan etc. Building problems with population imbalance and environmental issues, China has more problems than you can shake a stick at and long term the economy alone cannot cover them.

xinhui

I think you miss understood me.

I was quoting DXP's 1984 book, "fundamental problems facing China today", he believed if the economy would grow, just like water level raising; all boats will rise with it too. And I quote: Fixing problems will be easier if China has the money".

Today, China’s economic might outpaced her military might especially in the eyes of the ASEAN leaders. Having a strong military without a strong economy to support would mean a failure at somepoint. He understood that and put it in writing.

Everyone included every official of China know the list of issues China is facing is very large. Internally, some solutions worked for environment/poor hunger relief/energy/security, some don't and backfired badly. Sometime, they take some completely moronic approach to issues according to their own admission, but they are not ignorance of the problems they are facing.

You keep citing long term international issues China facing, well, that is your view and I respect that. I tend to analyze what the PRC leadership's currently policy instead my own view, what is their view? 100 of millions are living less then 1 dollar a day, millions with out access to good health care, environmental issue is at a crisis point, income imbalance, etc etc.

zraver

The problem is I do not think that is thier view, it should be but I do not think it is at least not for critical players. They won't see hundreds of millions living on less than a dollar a day they see 1 trillion in hard currency reserves, other nations ambitions, and thier own ambitions to remain in and climb through the pecking order. it is the nature of politics to look outward for a cause celeb to use like a woman uses make up to cover up blemishes. Everyone does it not just China.

But I digress, if the CCP was focused on China's needs then Taiwan would not matter. But with hundreds of millions living on less than 1 dollar a day China spends billions to menace an Island that used to, and might again one day be part of the mainland Chinese culture- this is irredentism. But it also proves that the Chinese leaders may couch thier terms and use slightly different ways to reach thier goals but that they suffer from the same base motivations as politicians everywhere.

xinhui

They won't see hundreds of millions living on less than a dollar a day

How do you know that? When is the last time you spoke to a Chinese official?

again, your view or their view. Taiwan is ROC, that is their official name and that is stated in ROC's own law, they are part of China. You have the right to disagree or even protest an unfair law according to your own view but until they actually change that, it is still part of China. A nation, any nation, has the right to see its broader whole, just the the as US civil war. There are those don't want to live under the government they don't want to, there are those who view the issue differently (over one million ROC citizens currently working/living in ML China), not everything is black and white, your posts tends to be on the zero sum game, black and white side.

I am sorry but I am not interested in the old Cold war - Zero Sum Game type of exchange which WAB seems to be full of, if you "feel" PRC is a threat, then it is. if other don't feel like it, then it is not.

zraver

The proof as they say is in the pudding.

Your yourself said there are over 1 million Taiwanese living and working in ML China. trade between the two is booming and if left to thier own devices the two will probably re-unite at some point but even if they don't both sides are still benefiting. So why station such a large amount of China's military capacity opposite the other China?

Other examples abound, China has new cancer cases emerging out of proportion to its population this is almost assuredly environmental. What has China done to address the current problem and then fix it? The health care system still sucks and the environment is still a far distant third behind growth and profit. Who do you think is most negatively affected by increased military spending, pollution, and a inadequate health care access? Those hundreds of millions living on less than 1 dollar a day.

What exactly is China doing to lift them from grinding poverty, to save the environment, and address these issues? Aiming missiles at other people, Olympic events, poor environmental and quality controls damn sure don't address them. Every time a Chinese official comes forward and says, "China is a still a poor country" its tongue in cheek becuase other parts of the Chinese government are engaged in chest thumping and giving the world the middle digit.

Is this a zero sum game? I don't know but history would argue that greater powers are always in competition to divide lesser powers into spheres of influence and other forms of confrontation. China stepped up and took on the mantle of Challenger of the US so we know the rules of the game. If China did not want to place itself into a strategic chess match with the US she should have focused on internal issues instead of external ones. This choice to focus outward was made by the CCP while hundreds of millions exist on less than 1 USD a day.

Inst

Actually, Xinhui, apparently with the reappraisal of PPP by the World Bank, the number of Chinese living on less than a dollar a day has shot up from 100 million to 300 million.

That would put their wages to 3650 rmb a year. The teachers in BLCU, so I understand, make around 10000 rmb a year. A decorated middle manager at Baosteel, the young husband of my young cousin (both in their 30s?), makes... Um, is it 84000 rmb a year or 12000 rmb a year? I think it's the former. A friend of my mothers, a member of the capitalist class, who is a moderately successful businesswoman in the musical industries trade, makes, or made, I heard she had a incident where the adjacent Nestle factory complained about effluvent flowing from her factory (what kind? Lacquer? Wood dust?) and forced her to relocate, $35000 a year.