RAR : 2012!China sent back to the Boxer Rebellion

[Simon_Jester]

Rabid, any pipeline through Central Asia would be preposterously expensive. You have to build road and rail infrastructure in a trackless wilderness inhabited by Turkish sheepherders whose lifestyle hasn't changed much since the days of the Mongols. Oh, and the entire area is Czar Nicholas II's personal property, too.

And 2012!China is just as dependent on the global sealanes in real life as it would be here, nearly as much of their oil comes in by tanker. And in 1900 they have the huge advantage of the world's deadliest warships to enforce it: it's not like they have to worry about the US surging five Nimitz battlegroups off their coast and blockading them here. In fact, I'd think that advantage opens up the world ocean to them, which is better and cheaper massive campaigns of troop-moving and road-building in central Asia or Siberia.

This is not to say that 2012!China wouldn't gain from a sphere of influence over the Asian parts of Russia, or that they won't try to make one. But in the short run, and even in the long run, sea trade is more important and more viable than land trade. You get more for your money and have more access to more places that way.

[Rabid]

@ Chirios :

In the modern world, with modern material and machine-tools, building a large refinery up-to-date with modern safety and environmental standards would take something between 3 and 5 years, maybe less, maybe more. What takes the most time is building the fractional distiller and other piece of very specialized heavy metal constructions that are made on demand by a few specialized contractor.
Trying to build the same refinery in country with a 1890-1910 tech-level, importing all the more high-tech parts from China and making them travel by sea, employing a mix of Chinese and local workers... I'd say this would take more like something in the ballpark of 6 to 12 years, depending on how much secondary infrastructures you have to build and things you have to debug.
If you don't bother with modern safety and environmental standards, I reckon you could build the same thing in roughly half the time, but it's very likely it would blow up one day. It could work as a transitional measure, though.

But anyway, you don't need to refine the crude next to the oilfields. Indeed, it would be far more practical for China to just import the crude and refine it themselves in their own refineries. It would be far less hassle for them from a logistical standpoint.


As for the drilling of the oilfields themselves, I can't really tell you. For this kind of things you'd need some heavy machinery and some specialized equipment that would have to be either transported there or manufactured in-situ ; and I don't know what would be the costs or how much time it would take.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes.

What China needs to do- they've got drilling companies, they've got people to lay railroad track. All they really need to do is show up on the Ottomans' and Persians' doorstep with pallets of SKS rifles in exchange for oil rights and the right to build railroad track and improve port infrastructure at places like Kuwait, Basra, and Bandar-Abbas. They can probably have at least a trickle of oil flowing in three to five years, and serious amounts in ten.

The people they're dealing with are already used to making this sort of bargain, often on ridiculously sycophantic terms.

[madd0ct0r]

There is oil under the sheply isles, Vietnam has an off shore oil rig some where, korea has oil somewhere ect ect.

why not railroad out into asia instead?

[Simon_Jester]

Pipelines are much better than rail for delivering large, steady flows of oil. They just take a lot of time and effort to build up, especially in the middle of nowhere and when pumping stations are factored in.

Rail will work... but I remind you that building rail routes across Central Asia has been a multi-decade undertaking. While the part to the Chinese border remains, finishing lines of commerce and communication, sending men to a place a place like Kazakhstan on foot during times of lawlessness... it's going to take a while.

But buying oil closer to home is safer- is China well equipped for offshore oil rig work? If not, this becomes a moot point.

[mr friendly guy]

But buying oil closer to home is safer- is China well equipped for offshore oil rig work? If not, this becomes a moot point.

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2011-0 ... 626914.htm

http://english.sina.com/china/p/2009/0628/251721.html

Hope these help answer your question.

[Lonestar]

Honestly, I think the temptation to kick Japan out of Korea and the French out of IndoChina would be too great. Even the US out of the Phillippines.


That said, I'm unconvinced that WW1 would replay in this scenario. You have over a decade of FUTURE! TECH leaking out of Taiwan and China, and for all we know by 1914 they'll be crude AK-47 knockoffs all over the place.

[Simon_Jester]

There probably will be- WW1 won't look remotely the same, it'll probably be won handily by whoever managed to wheedle a few battalions of Type 59s out of the Chinese. But I'm pretty sure it will happen in some form, because there's just too much concentrated viciousness and argument in Central Europe to not have a war over.

[Lonestar]

There probably will be- WW1 won't look remotely the same, it'll probably be won handily by whoever managed to wheedle a few battalions of Type 59s out of the Chinese. But I'm pretty sure it will happen in some form, because there's just too much concentrated viciousness and argument in Central Europe to not have a war over.

Why?


I'm serious, the appearance of 2012 China upon the world scene in 1901 would throw the entire thing out of whack. The POD here is staggering. If China pushes Japan out of Korea, and the other European(white) powers out of the areas immediately adjoining China then there is a serious problem. We don't have a Asiatic Country that is trying to gain parity with the Europeans, we have one that, frankly, has a insurmountable advantage over, well, everyone.

I am NOT saying China is going to go on a "conquer the world" rampage, 2012 China can't conquer 1901 Earth no matter what, but the temptation to "clean house" in East Asia will be immense. This will throw a wrench in several of the things that lead up to WW1. The Naval race is DOA. The Ottomans might get propped up by the Chinese, averting the Balkans Wars. The Russo-Japanese War never happens. Shoot, It might even mean no Moroccan Crisis.

[Simon_Jester]

It's possible, I suppose. But the French and the Germans are still glaring at each other, as are the Russians and the Austro-Hungarians. Russia is less fragile because there's no Russo-Japanese War, but more fragile because it's being screwed with by the Chinese. The British have basically lost maritime supremacy east of Suez, but will be all the more sensitive about trying to keep control of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, even if that just means buying frigates from the Chinese rather than building their own battleships.

The Chinese themselves may pursue a 'divide and conquer manipulate' strategy, trying to keep the European powers from uniting into a single block opposed to the Yellow Peril.

There's still flash points and crises and systematic imbalances in the system. It's not going to look remotely the same as it did in real life, you may see a different set of countries on each side and a very different date, but the size and penetration of the military-industrial complexes in Europe is just...

...It's really hard for me to imagine a world with no world wars, starting from 1900, unless you have the Martians land and outright conquer everyone to make war impossible. There was so much 'spoiling for a fight' and so little actual serious willingness to compromise in order to avoid war.

Maybe I'm wrong.

[Lonestar]

Well,


No matter how China tries to conceal it, shit is going to get leaked out. The immediate history(year or so) after 1901 will be drastically different, and every one of those European powers are going to try to pry knowledge out of Taiwan and China. Someone is going to get a hold of some copies of the history of the next 100 years, even if it's a set of World Book Encyclopedia yanked form a public library in Taiwan.

You mentioned the total immersion of the MIC causing WW1 to happen anyway. Well, lessee, The UK(and Russia, and France, and Germany) are going to raise holy hell about the lost of their enclaves. SOMEONE is going to try to force the issue, in which case we'll see a display of early 21st century PLA tech that'll make clear that there are severe short comings of the European militaries.

This means, like I said, the naval race is DOA. I'm sure it won't be more than a few years before AK-47 knockoffs proliferate, which might satiate the nationalist fervor.


There isn't really a historical analog to this. I guess you could point to the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, but the pre-columbian tribes and nations didn't have widespread literacy and a reasonable telecommunications infrastructure.

[Lonestar]

It occurs to me that as "future history, history" leaks out people might be trying to even scores that haven't even happened yet. Jews tracking down members of the Nazi leadership who are kids or teenagers, etc.

[Pelranius]

I imagine that 1901 China will become a protectorate of sorts between America and Russia. Overseas and ethnic Chinese are likely to go invest there, maybe (though the question is, what can they invest in besides resource extraction and basic infastructure)?

No one really wants to see North Korea, Myanmar or Vietnam (despite recent relative friendliness between Washington and Hanoi) prop up their regimes by taking over swathes of China, either by proxy or outright annexation.

India isn't likely to support any moves to Tibetan independence (if independent, the Tibetans are more than likely to start asking for ethnically Tibetan pieces of northern India, and New Delhi already has enough insurgencies on its plate).

The major economies are likely to grab onto economic real estate by bribing the Qing with modern weapons and technology (like the Manchurian railroads and mining concessions). They'll need to prop up some sort of centralized Chinese authority in western China, mostly to make sure that terrorists don't go hide there.

Japan will probably pull Imperial troops out of Taiwan (no way that today's Tokyo is going to try quashing the revolts that happened there between 1900 to 1920 OTL). Hopefully said Imperial Japanese aren't going to go around trying to pick fights with America for revenge over "future slights in WWII".

Kazakhstan will probably leave Xinjiang along, if only because of the other powers' concern about stability in western China and making sure their couple hundred thousand Uyghurs can't link up with their brethren. Mongolia could try something with Inner Mongolia, but I doubt that would stick.

I wonder if the Emperor can sideline the Dowager Empress? And how long can the Manchus last? And will foreign interlopers/returning Chinese citizens cut a deal with people like Yuan Shikai, or decide people like him are too much trouble to keep around?

[K. A. Pital]

Massive overkill RAR with China basically creating the Greater Communist Way. "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" (which would actually make a lot of sense for the period of the early 1900s in underdeveloped nations) spreads like wildfire. The collapsing Russian Empire loses its Asian territories to China almost immediately. The Revolution in Russia might play out differently (who knows which RSDRP faction the China leadership would support), but all in all, massive turmoil of the world's colonial powers is to be expected. No way American or European powers could create nukes in the 1900s, so they're screwed.

Overkill. Totally.

[Lonestar]

Massive overkill RAR with China basically creating the Greater Communist Way. "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" (which would actually make a lot of sense for the period of the early 1900s in underdeveloped nations) spreads like wildfire. The collapsing Russian Empire loses its Asian territories to China almost immediately. The Revolution in Russia might play out differently (who knows which RSDRP faction the China leadership would support), but all in all, massive turmoil of the world's colonial powers is to be expected. No way American or European powers could create nukes in the 1900s, so they're screwed.

Overkill. Totally.

Uh, not quite.


China imports more than 50% of it's food, so in the immediate future there is going to be severe rationing, and maybe worse. It's questionable that they can make up the shortfall with imports from countries using 1900 agricultural techniques.


And even if they can make up the shortfall, they're going to have to carefully balance their assets(Future!tech) without giving away too much that obliterate the overwhelming advantage they have. I mean, probably within a year there are going to be AK and SKS clones all over the place, within 5 years there'll be trucks and automobiles much better than what existed historically, lack of computers be damned. Unless China decides to extort what they need through nuclear blackmail which might work in the short term, but long term? No way.

[K. A. Pital]

It's questionable that they can make up the shortfall with imports from countries using 1900 agricultural techniques.

With their weapons they can spread Green Revolution technologies to other nations while at the same time demand from them to simply OBEY. I mean, nukes and jet fighters. The rest of the world is fucked. Severe rationing is obviously going to happen, but a collapse to starvation is hardly possible, since China is also a major food exporter (and in 1900s, other nations simply won't be able to afford this food). I also read that China's food exports exceed imports by weight:
China’s food exports exceed imports by 19.2% by weight
++orgprints.org/13563/1/13563.pdf
++sial-group.com/News/Food-Beverage-News/Food-beverage-industry/Analysis-of-opportunities-in-China-food-imports

I mean, probably within a year there are going to be AK and SKS clones all over the place, within 5 years there'll be trucks and automobiles much better than what existed historically, lack of computers be damned. Unless China decides to extort what they need through nuclear blackmail which might work in the short term, but long term? No way.

Nuclear blackmail will work for several decades, actually. Other nations will be too busy selling food to the new hegemon instead of developing advanced technologies, and given the enormous superiority in all things intelligence, China will crush anyone who attempts a nuclear program in the 1930-1940s like a bug.

[Lonestar]

With their weapons they can spread Green Revolution technologies to other nations while at the same time demand from them to simply OBEY. I mean, nukes and jet fighters. The rest of the world is fucked. Severe rationing is obviously going to happen, but a collapse to starvation is hardly possible, since China is also a major food exporter (and in 1900s, other nations simply won't be able to afford this food). I also read that China's food exports exceed imports by weight:
China’s food exports exceed imports by 19.2% by weight
++orgprints.org/13563/1/13563.pdf
++sial-group.com/News/Food-Beverage-News/Food-beverage-industry/Analysis-of-opportunities-in-China-food-imports

Yeah, turns out processed foods weigh more than raw foods. In addition, China has become much more meat eaters in the post two decades then centuries before, and you can't just flip a switch convert industrial livestock factories into grains.


Anyway, unless they proceed to nuke several cities then(which is a losing proposition from a long term standpoint), well, sorry, their superior military is of limited utility.


(1)Not even 1 billion Chinese have enough personnel to be a global occupation force.

(2)Upon arrival they're going to be hitting a wall in fuel stocks, fast. By an AMAZING coincidence their most useful military stuff will be gas guzzlers, their 21st Century agricultural techniques require a lot of fuel, even the initial capital investment in opening up undeveloped resource sources will require an enormous amount of fuel....especially if they're doing a crash course.

(3)The assumption you seem to be making is that China can export Green Revolution tech, and have enough land area elsewhere converted to it, quick enough to stave off disaster. This is a silly assumption.

Nuclear blackmail will work for several decades, actually. Other nations will be too busy selling food to the new hegemon instead of developing advanced technologies, and given the enormous superiority in all things intelligence, China will crush anyone who attempts a nuclear program in the 1930-1940s like a bug.

It might work for one decade. Shoot, it might not even last for one year, the math might turn out that some countries outside of China will be facing severe food shortages if they meet China's demands. Some might say "fuck it" and go with the ambiguous threat of a a nuclear attack then with the more certain famine at home.

The Hun blasting a few European and North American cities into ruin with nukes? Yeah, that'll go well. It might deter the Imperialists indefinitely. On the other hand, it WILL permanently stain the PRC forever in this new world, and there are too many variables to assume that this is acceptable. The Chinese have a limited window before their society goes crashing down due to lack of consumer exports, and the squeeze of fuel and food limits. Shoot, even if everyone went "okey-doky" how would they get the 1900 resources to China? None of the contemporary ports can handle the very large cargo vessels that the global-trade oriented Chinese merchant marine uses.

Once it becomes clear that the Chinese are panicking enough to start dusting cities, well...someone is going to come to the conclusion that there are levers to pull.

IMO, the Chinese would not start nuking cities, that would be an absolute last ditch effort. Trying to balance their main trade good assets, like new and exciting ways for European nations to kill each other? That seems more likely.

And they have to move REALLY fast on that, since it's only a matter of time before people start stealing reference books in public libraries(or university libraries) and passing them off to the Imperialists. The stuff that would be most immediately useful to the Europeans would also be the stuff they can most easily build analogs of.

[K. A. Pital]

As for "AK and SKS clones", those are going to be crappy and in any case small arms of the period is the least worry for the Chinese. Nuclear blackmail (actually, for the time being even blackmail with chemical weapons, still perfectly uh-kay, and ordinary bombs dropped on cities by their bombers with impunity) is enough.

Aviation blackmail will last until the 1940s. Unless other nations down a Chinese bomber plane somehow, which is nigh impossible in the 1900s, and will remain so for a while, China could simply wipe out the military and civilian leadership of a certain nation in a show of force (or at least utterly decimate their capital without them being able to do anything) and keep the nuclear secret for later.

This is not even funny cause its so lopsided. The one about Aurora ending up in the 1800s was better.

[Lonestar]

As for "AK and SKS clones", those are going to be crappy and in any case small arms of the period is the least worry for the Chinese. Nuclear blackmail (actually, for the time being even blackmail with chemical weapons, still perfectly uh-kay, and ordinary bombs dropped on cities by their bombers with impunity) is enough.

Aviation blackmail will last until the 1940s. Unless other nations down a Chinese bomber plane somehow, which is nigh impossible in the 1900s, and will remain so for a while, China could simply wipe out the military and civilian leadership of a certain nation in a show of force (or at least utterly decimate their capital without them being able to do anything) and keep the nuclear secret for later.

This is not even funny cause its so lopsided. The one about Aurora ending up in the 1800s was better.

Yeah? How long are those airplanes going to fly without fuel, and parts?

We're going to be facing a situation where Chinese aviation will have to devolve to be more efficient, and for all we know we'll see Taiwanese personnel and equipment defecting elsewhere. Like I said, the window the Chinese have to be a big bad bully is very, very limited.

(1)Their economy is completely crashed.

(2)They are running up against a wall fuel wise, and the military will be competing with agricultural and industrial products.

(3)They are going to be facing at best rationing, at worse a famine.

(4)They will almost certainly be expending precious limited munitions right off the bat, against the Japanese in Korea, against Russia, against Europeans who want "their" Enclaves back.

(5)There is no way to easily get the resources they need from point A to point C

(6)They have to worry about technology, book-learning, and personnel leaking out, both from the Mainland and Taiwan(and securing Taiwanese equipment and personnel means even more expenditure of fuel and limited high tech assets). Secrets like "bombs that can dust an entire city" won't remain secret for long, someone is going to walk off with a copy of an encyclopedia out of a public library and sell it overseas.

....annnnnnnd in your universe the rational move the Chinese are going to make is "gas the fuck out of any who doesn't bow down"?

[Purple]

....annnnnnnd in your universe the rational move the Chinese are going to make is "gas the fuck out of any who doesn't bow down"?

Er... I am no expert on anything but... why not?

[Simon_Jester]

....annnnnnnd in your universe the rational move the Chinese are going to make is "gas the fuck out of any who doesn't bow down"?

Er... I am no expert on anything but... why not?

Purple, this has come up with you before in other contexts, so I'm going to explain something in general.

Modern civilization runs on a complicated net of relationships- resources need to be where they're needed, when they're needed. You need people to buy goods and trade them. The deadly weapons of modern warfare take enormous cooperation and large production systems to work, and are if anything even harder to maintain than they are to build- a modern jet fighter is within about an order of magnitude of the cost of a space shuttle launch, and with good reason.

Now, suppose you want to make your world work by waving a gun at it- every time anyone questions you, or tries to outmaneuver you, or simply ignores you, you threaten to kill them. The problem?

Guns (and bombs) are not magic "make people do what I want" devices. No, all they do is make people fear for their lives. How do they act when they are afraid? You don't really have control over that. They may do exactly what you say and have some sense of obligation to pursue your interests instead of their own, like good little client states. But that is unlikely, for people with any pride or intelligence of their own. It's more likely that they will do whatever is calculated to make you think they are obeying, while secretly searching for a way to overthrow your domination.

On the individual level, you have to sleep some time, and if you don't have people who are personally loyal to you, no number of weapons will save you from people who've decided to bash your head in while you sleep. On the national level things are more complicated- but if your rule is extended by pure, naked force, it's unstable. If you become distracted, people elsewhere will start working against you while you're distracted. People will constantly defy or disrupt your authority in small ways, ways that are so obviously not enough to justify mass murder... because that's how they find out the edges of your policy, what they can get away with. In many cases, you would have to be an insane tyrant to fault them for doing these things- like engaging in weapon research when they themselves have armed and competent enemies to worry about, not just you.

And if you have shortages of food or fuel that make you rely on foreign resources, your people will not agree to quietly sit and starve because you decided to stop buying food and fuel, because it was more important to teach foreigners a lesson by blowing them up.


For all these reasons, rule by pure force is unstable. It's not so simple as "I have one weapon you can't stop, so I could theoretically kill you all given enough time, so you are all now my permanent slaves to do with as I please." As Boris Yeltsin put it, "you can make a throne of bayonets, but you can't sit on it very long."

As for "AK and SKS clones", those are going to be crappy...

Not necessarily. European factories of the time turned out bolt-action rifles to very high qualities and tolerances. The things that delayed adoption of automatic and semiautomatic rifles were mostly:

-Lack of need. If everyone else uses them, you don't have to change yet. World War Two changed that because all sides went into the war with the capability for submachine guns, and realized that they needed more short-range firepower... but the designs could have been built very easily

-Ammunition production. This is a serious concern for conscript armies: they go through an epic amount of ammunition when using automatic weapons. But it does not prevent production of automatic rifles for a few 'guard' divisions, should this become necessary.

-Tradeoffs. Basically, making an adequate bolt-action rifle is easier than making an adequate automatic rifle, likewise for making very good samples of each. The genius of the AK series (I'm not so sure about the SKS) is that the designer took many advanced, progressive features of good automatic rifles, and figured out how to simplify production until the weapon could be turned out in enormous numbers to relatively broad machining tolerances. In the process, Kalashnikov also made the AK a weapon that could have been turned out by the arsenals of World War I-era powers, just as they can be turned out by gunsmiths with hand tools in Pakistan.

Aviation blackmail will last until the 1940s. Unless other nations down a Chinese bomber plane somehow, which is nigh impossible in the 1900s, and will remain so for a while, China could simply wipe out the military and civilian leadership of a certain nation in a show of force (or at least utterly decimate their capital without them being able to do anything) and keep the nuclear secret for later.

The Chinese military as now configured would actually have serious problems with demolishing a European capital; they don't have the range with land based aviation, and their naval aviation is still not all that strong. Plus, the weeks of time their carrier would spend steaming to the destination would give a lot of warning, during which time an antagonist could build hardened shelters and disperse leadership, if they realize they need to.

See, this is the capability that makes the US military so insanely expensive compared to that of China, even though China keeps far more people under arms- the US spent a lot of time and money acquiring the ability to lay waste to random capitals using conventional weapons. China hasn't.

To blackmail the world effectively by non-nuclear means, the Chinese would need to build an entirely new generation of strategic bombers, more aircraft carriers, and so on. They will not be able to do this while simultaneously dealing with the economic dislocations they face from a lack of food and fuel. It's far more reasonable, safer and cheaper and more prudent, for them to adopt a more peaceful stance with remote foreign states- or try to.

If they wish to spread socialism (with Chinese characteristics, fine) in the Third World, they can do that, but attempting an adversarial relationship with the entire rest of the planet will only work via nuclear blackmail, and may ultimately fail even then.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, turns out processed foods weigh more than raw foods. In addition, China has become much more meat eaters in the post two decades then centuries before, and you can't just flip a switch convert industrial livestock factories into grains.

No, you can't. But export of agricultural products is also pretty high in China. The abrupt collapse of meat and luxury food consumption is something people will have to live with. I would assume China will institute a wartime emergency economy for the time being.

Anyway, unless they proceed to nuke several cities then(which is a losing proposition from a long term standpoint), well, sorry, their superior military is of limited utility.

Pinpoint strikes with non-nuclear weapons would be enough to make the whole world shit a ton of bricks in fear. Nukes should be concealed for the time being.

Not even 1 billion Chinese have enough personnel to be a global occupation force.

You are seriously kidding me. Britain did that "global occupation" thing with far less manpower and with far more primitive weapons. China does not have to have a "global occupation force" - having a modern airforce capable of bringing any nation to ruin with the ease of scratching your buttock is basicallly Stuartworld. Of course fuel will be a problem, but considering some of China's factories can still make 40's tech, they're not going to lose the skies to any other nation any time soon.

The assumption you seem to be making is that China can export Green Revolution tech, and have enough land area elsewhere converted to it, quick enough to stave off disaster. This is a silly assumption.

Not too silly as their own territory is that of China 2010s. They have a base to start from, a base which produces enough food for the meantime (at least enough to survive on plant calories with rationing). China has the absolutely undeveloped South-East Asia next to it. There's absolutely nothing which can stop China from converting the rest of SEA into their rice-growing colony. Giving it one of the HYC sorts of rice would be the first step. High yield cultivars work on their own pretty good especially if we're talking about rice and rice alone.

Shoot, it might not even last for one year, the math might turn out that some countries outside of China will be facing severe food shortages if they meet China's demands. Some might say "fuck it" and go with the ambiguous threat of a a nuclear attack then with the more certain famine at home.

Like I said, giving other nations high yield cultivars will be the first step towards a faster Green Revolution. I won't be noting that North America wasn't really improving their yields that much during 1900-1940s. With high yield cultivars that would change. As for "some saying fuck it", Russia kept exporting grain to Europe when famine was raging inside in the late XIX century and the 1930s, and Europe wasn't even so overwhelmingly more powerful than Russia. I mean, not with a 100 year tech gap.

The Hun blasting a few European and North American cities into ruin with nukes? Yeah, that'll go well. It might deter the Imperialists indefinitely. On the other hand, it WILL permanently stain the PRC forever in this new world, and there are too many variables to assume that this is acceptable. The Chinese have a limited window before their society goes crashing down due to lack of consumer exports, and the squeeze of fuel and food limits. Shoot, even if everyone went "okey-doky" how would they get the 1900 resources to China? None of the contemporary ports can handle the very large cargo vessels that the global-trade oriented Chinese merchant marine uses.

1. China is not as consumer-export dependent as it used to be in the 1990s. 2. I did not say China will use nukes straightaway. It will keep them for later and use more convenient means of threatening other powers for the immediate post-transition period. 3. You're not considering the fact that food exporters will run their own vessels to China - if they can't service Chinese vessels, that's only logical. Chinese vessels will probably be used by China itself in an effort to transform South-East Asia into a gigantic agrarian colony of sorts growing rice, rice and rice for China.

Once it becomes clear that the Chinese are panicking enough to start dusting cities, well...someone is going to come to the conclusion that there are levers to pull. IMO, the Chinese would not start nuking cities, that would be an absolute last ditch effort. Trying to balance their main trade good assets, like new and exciting ways for European nations to kill each other? That seems more likely

I don't think they'll go blasting cities immediately, like I said, they could easily turn nations into ruin with their copies of Soviet 50's bombers and purely conventional weapons for which there's no current counterbalance. But once they secure a rice-growing hinterland in SEA (which won't be threatened by any other colonial power for a very long time - a Chinese nuclear sub would be able to sink entire fleets of the era without blinking an eye), what is the use of Europe and USA?

And they have to move REALLY fast on that, since it's only a matter of time before people start stealing reference books in public libraries(or university libraries) and passing them off to the Imperialists. The stuff that would be most immediately useful to the Europeans would also be the stuff they can most easily build analogs of.

Oh, that's quite certain. However, part of the strategy would be obviously to deny access to libraries to "people" (that being non-Chinese). And considering the Chinese are not that bad at secrecy, some of their secrets might be kept buried for quite a while. Harbor zones will be restricted, foreign merchants double or triple checked. It is not hard to create a system of secrecy even in a very large nation (re: USSR).

Yeah? How long are those airplanes going to fly without fuel, and parts?

I would assume that cannibalizing parts would be a perfectly valid strategy. Considering that like 10 modern bombers could be enough to ruin any city of choice, the rest could be easily put into reserve at once, while factories work on making those 40s and 50s bombers. Same for fighters. Nothing in 1900 can challenge even one such machine. Why keep a huge airforce? Better keep a squad which is ever ready to attack any target at will. After all, aviation will be a tool of long-range attacks, gunboat diplomacy and so on. The army itself is perfectly capable of standing its ground and nobody would be able to invade China.

We're going to be facing a situation where Chinese aviation will have to devolve to be more efficient, and for all we know we'll see Taiwanese personnel and equipment defecting elsewhere. Like I said, the window the Chinese have to be a big bad bully is very, very limited.

Why would the Taiwanese "defect" elsewhere and serve some non-Chinese white barbarians when they're pretty strong on the Chinese nationalism thing and claim to be the legitimate government of China and that China will be "reunited", and that status-quo lasts for ages, and since their small economy is even more export-dependent, and their exports are modern nature? I would rather assume Taiwan would immediately take steps to ally with transported China which shares similar challenges, similar technology and similar knowledge, instead of basically throwing itself to nations which can't help it AT ALL.

(1)Their economy is completely crashed.

Wartime economy does not mean a crash.

(2)They are running up against a wall fuel wise, and the military will be competing with agricultural and industrial products.

The industry will more likely be primitivized and the civilian economy would be working on the South Asian agrarian conversion problem. Synthetic fuel (from coal) can keep the most critical parts running, so there's always will be like ten modern planes running. And ten modern planes running means anyone can be punished swiftly and brutally.

(3)They are going to be facing at best rationing, at worse a famine.

Considering what has been said of exports and imports and especially your own note about "meat eaters" (as you know, during rationing meat calories are usually dispensed of, but there is no general threat famine), rationing is obviously likely, but a famine? Bloody unlikely, especially with SEA converted to a rice field in a short order with nothing stopping China.

(4)They will almost certainly be expending precious limited munitions right off the bat, against the Japanese in Korea, against Russia, against Europeans who want "their" Enclaves back.

You're joking? First shots from Japan, Russia, European powers will result in a declaration of war, a strike against the capital with a limited airforce and enormous casualties and a shameful peace for whatever nation attempted to retake their "colony".

(5)There is no way to easily get the resources they need from point A to point C

Resources like which? Oil can be made synthetically, at least, for the time being. Civilian car oil consumption will end there and then, and rationing will be working for a few years.

(6)They have to worry about technology, book-learning, and personnel leaking out, both from the Mainland and Taiwan(and securing Taiwanese equipment and personnel means even more expenditure of fuel and limited high tech assets). Secrets like "bombs that can dust an entire city" won't remain secret for long, someone is going to walk off with a copy of an encyclopedia out of a public library and sell it overseas.

Building a vacuum bomb is out of the capabilities of any industrial power and will stay that way for many years. I covered that before.

....annnnnnnd in your universe the rational move the Chinese are going to make is "gas the fuck out of any who doesn't bow down"?

Not exactly so. 1. Take over SEA, this is your rice and your chance to stop food rationing once they learn to make high yield cultivars. The population of these territories is so far rather small and that also helps. 2. Gas the fuck out of those who attempt to invade/attack you. That will teach them not to mess with you (the shock will be very strong and will last for a few years at least, which is what you need for Point 1, take over SEA). 3. Rely on other nation to supply you with their own ships. 4. Cannibalize airforce to keep a minimum of planes flying, primitivize it to 40s level. 5. Nuclear units will remain your sole naval units for a while (see FUEL ECONOMY), but that is enough to sink mosts of the world's navies if someone is dumb enough to start a naval war with you.

The Chinese military as now configured would actually have serious problems with demolishing a European capital; they don't have the range with land based aviation, and their naval aviation is still not all that strong.

They don't have the range? Um... I think they have a few dozen tankers and a hundred of H-6s, from which they'd only need a small fraction (like 5). That would be enough to utterly crush any SEA or European capital at least. America is so far staying out of it, but it is not like China had a conflict with America in the 1900s.

Plus, the weeks of time their carrier would spend steaming to the destination would give a lot of warning, during which time an antagonist could build hardened shelters and disperse leadership, if they realize they need to.

I would say China's best move would be to utilize nuclear submarines (re: fuel economy) with cruise missiles if they want to make a point.
++en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_093
Seriously, what can the enemy do against this? Nothing! Type 093 comes, shoots, makes a point, done.

To blackmail the world effectively by non-nuclear means, the Chinese would need to build an entirely new generation of strategic bombers, more aircraft carriers, and so on.

I already said why this is not so: in the 1900s, you only need to keep a very small force active. For example, the Type 093 can singlehandedly sink most navies of the time. That's not really stretching it - it really can without any detection. That will perhaps make even a stronger point than the decimation of capitals. The H-6 (of which there's more than a hundred) can be kept flying in a force of 10-15 machines, but that would be likewise enough to lay waste to anything in range (plus refuel).

They will not be able to do this while simultaneously dealing with the economic dislocations they face from a lack of food and fuel. It's far more reasonable, safer and cheaper and more prudent, for them to adopt a more peaceful stance with remote foreign states- or try to.

I didn't say they'll go on a murder rampage. Not quite. Only attack if former colonial powers will decide to "reclaim" their concessions (just send the 093, a nuclear sub, to sink their navies, done). Nuclear submarines do NOT waste oil (most of hte PLAN will have to stay on anchor as coastal fortifications, though), and they alone will be enough to dominate that sea for 50 years.

If they wish to spread socialism (with Chinese characteristics, fine) in the Third World, they can do that, but attempting an adversarial relationship with the entire rest of the planet will only work via nuclear blackmail, and may ultimately fail even then.

Like I said, China will have to (!) use force to teach a lesson to the colonials only if they go with the "recapture" plan (and once their navies are annihilated, kinda hard to do that, really). The rest of the world will not be attacked for no gain. China only needs SEA and high-yield cultivars spreading there as an agrarian supply territory. It might even move to colonize it (industry will be primitivized and lots of workers will be out of job - they will be sent to the fields as agrarian colonists).

They'll have tough years of wartime emergency ahead of them, but really, for 50 years or so nothing can threaten them.

[K. A. Pital]

Some more stuff on the China food balance.

Under current Chinese conditions, the minimum average requirement per individual is about 400 kilograms of raw grain. Supplies at this level are considered sufficient not only to meet basic subsistence needs, but also to allow significant amounts of grain to be allocated to animal feed and processing purposes. Taking into account population growth, the implication is that in order to fulfill the imperative of "basic" (i.e., 95 percent) self-sufficiency, China will need to produce at least 580 million tons of grain by 2020, compared with a total output of 546 million tons in 2010.

546 million tons of grain (2010 output) means that right now China produces c. 380-390 kg per person. Not too shabby. A wartime economy would obviously have to dispense of animal feed, etc. on a wide scale, with the dietary structure falling back to plant calories. However, famine? That would take something more.

To put the Chinese own production vs. imports into perspective:

I'm not sure 1,5 million tones of rice, say, can impact seriously an economy on rationing which produces 550 million tons of grain per year.

Let's assume that this grains production is heavily dependent on fertilizer and see what share of fertilizer in China is domestically produced and what share is imported, right? To get a clue on how drastic will the fall in grain production be.

Presently, Chinese farmers have got used to applying N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) fertilizers and microelement fertilizers instead of straight fertilizers. This significantly raises the scale of Chinese compound fertilizer market. In 2009, the scale was about CNY 200 billion. By the end of 2009, there were over 4,500 compound fertilizer producers in China with the aggregate production capacity of over 200 million tons. In 2009, the production of Chinese compound fertilizers totaled over 50 million tons. Chinese compound fertilizer production mainly concentrates in Shandong, Jiangsu, Hubei and Sichuan, etc. ... Despite the severe overcapacity in Chinese compound fertilizer industry, large quantities of ternary compound fertilizers are being imported every year. On one hand, these imported fertilizers can supplement the deficiency of Chinese potash fertilizers; on the other hand, imported compound fertilizers dominate Chinese high-end market.

So "high-end market" is dominated by imported compound fertilizers. But that is not too drastic an issue. Let's delve in further:

China has been self-sufficient in nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers since 1997 and 2006, respectively, but still imports about half of its potassium fertilizer

So China will lose 55-45% of potash fertilizer (if the projections of declining Chinese potash imports for 2012 are to be believed). Let us consider the impact further by analyzing what share of fertilizer consumption falls to potash?

Total fertilizer consumption in 2008 was 51-52 MMT, according to sources at China’s Academy of Agricultural Science (CAAS).

Potash fertilizer consumption increased by 43.2 percent from 3.7 MMT to 5.3 MMT. Close to 90 percent of potash consumed in China is in the form of a compound fertilizer.

So the impact of potash on the total consumption of fertilizer would be like 10%. Not too drastic - certainly nothing like a 50% collapse. Since nitrogen and phosphorus and 40-50% of potash fertilizers are produced in China from domestic raw resource, we would assume that there won't be a collapse in production here. Also, there'll be excess nitrogen fertilizer (prior to that exported to SEA), so China ++static.globaltrade.net/files/pdf/20091222055550.pdf

Next: oil imports. Obviously, there will be a 50% collapse in oil consumption (50% of oil is imported), but if you ground the PLAN and the PLAAF and stop the Army except the most critical operations (like taking over agrarian SEA nations, etc.). Let's examine the impact as well.

The IEA showed a relatively conservative projection in its Reference Scenario of WEO 2008 that China’s natural gas consumption will attain 138 bcm by 2020 while domestic production will amount to 110 bcm.

As far as natural gas is concerned, China loses like 20% of NG consumption, which is not even 1% of its total energy consumption which is 71% coal. In gas and coal China is almost self-sufficient (sufficient enough to survive an energy crisis with rationing in an emergency economy, at least).

As far as oil is concerned, the loss will be immense (50%) and that would also mean an 8-10% loss in total energy consumption. However:

Industry and Transportation are main sectors of China’s oil demand, which take three quarters of China’s total oil consumption. The proportion of industrial oil consumption declined from 70.1% in 1980 to 41.1% in 2007; while the proportion of transportation oil consumption increased from 10.4% in 1980 to 33.6% in 2007 (see Fig.3).

I think it is possible for China to get through the oil crisis with coal liquification ( ++ergobalance.blogspot.com/2007/06/china-to-make-oil-from-coal-on-massive.html ) and extreme rationing during the first five years.

Let's further examine the impact of export collapse on physical production (since, as we understand, China will go to rationing and wartime command economy anyway). This paper examines some of the less obvious underlying figures behind the export/GDP figure. As GDP will become meaningless in a rationing situation, one should see just how many people and how much of the physical goods production is concentrated in the export sector.
++allroadsleadtochina.com/reports/prc_270907.pdf

Even the export volume/GDP figure itself has declined to 29%.

So I wouldn't say China is not able to manage this with rationing. In fact, everything strongly suggests that Chinese energy and agricultural output is high enough to solve almost all problems EXCEPT the oil issue. However, as we found that 30% of oil demand is transportation, and I'd presume a huge share of that is private car fleet, a ban on private car usage would make enormous sense for the emergency and would help to get through the issue. After all, China imports only 50%, not 100% of its oil and it already has Fisher-Tropsch plants, which will be massively scaled up during the next 5 years. In fact, with the 6-10 mio. unemployed from the export collapse, China would be able to create labour armies to build more and more coal liquificatoin plants to rectify the oil issue.

I don't see a famine as remotely possible with the grain and fertilizer balance at hand, I don't see China's dependence on the undeveloped 1900s nations, and I don't see other nations being able to hurt China at all with their fleets sunk as soon as they near the coast (PLAN ships firmly anchored but still armed with weaponry that's overkill for 1900s ships + nuclear attack subs capable of wiping out any Navy on earth including the RN in full force).

I'll focus on retaining overwhelming military capacity (especially nuclear submarines!) and possible impact of that a tad later.

[mr friendly guy]

Stas, from my understanding China's coal areas are in the North, where its also parched. Water is required for the coal to oil conversion process, while there is plenty of water in the South. So they might need a few years for their water diversion projects.

Also what about using Korea as a food source? Since they will kick the Japanese out, they could start spreading the high yield plants there first.

[K. A. Pital]

Also what about using Korea as a food source? Since they will kick the Japanese out, they could start spreading the high yield plants there first.

Obviously China would take over (or, rather, "liberate") Korea. I mean, it would be a liberation indeed, the Koreans were not kool with the Japanese at the time at all. However, taking over SEA is also important. Why? Because the SEA climate is much more conductive for mass production of rice, while Korea's territories are not really good for agriculture. Though obviously they would be used.

As for oil, China has as of now 100 mio. barrels in reserve, which would allow to (teeth-grindingly) run through a slowdown of oil consumption over a max. timespan of three months.

This graph (consumption-wise) is the best thing I found:


I would suggest that jet fuel production will cease (only stocks - PLAAF grounded, there's no need to burn stocks just for gigs) and gasoline production would largely fall, together with diesel. Rationing of fuel for transportation is a complex subject which would require to examine the dependency of the Chinese transport network on oil, the capability of the Chinese Railways to compensate, etc.