RAR : 2012!China sent back to the Boxer Rebellion

[PainRack]

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.

No idea about the other items, but prior to 1914, most of SEA was heavily underdeveloped, with poor shipping facilities. Its hard to imagine how China could actually transport the surpluses from a green revolution of perishable food products out of the region without upgrading the infrastructure and ships involved. And such capital expenditure would also presumably require more energy investment too.

[K. A. Pital]

Transporting rice is not that enormous a challenge. Britain took its blood harvest from India without XXI century infrastructure.

[Simon_Jester]

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.

The number of tankers needed to increase the H-6s' effective range that drastically is pretty impressive, and it would be a very complicated operation, but at least feasible. Then again, this reduces the number of bombers actually sent out- and at some point you hit a limit with non-nuclear weapons. You can't actually paralyze a country with a few dozen cruise missiles, or a few dozen tonnes of bombs, no matter how precisely you deliver them. Even doing it as an endless shuttle-bombing operation gets difficult- you rack up flight hours on those tankers fast, and run through a prodigious amount of jet fuel.

How many times did B-52s bomb Hanoi, without "paralyzing" North Vietnam?

It's easy to underestimate the killing power of modern weapons, but it's easy to overestimate it too.


Now, this isn't particularly relevant- I basically agree that if China wants to turn large chunks of Asia into rice-growing hinterlands, nobody can stop them in this era. But dwelling endlessly on military invincibility distorts the discussion, I think. Economic muscle matters about as much.

[K. A. Pital]

Economically, as I found, they're also pretty much the most powerful nation on Earth. The oil import collapse would be bad, but that aside, in other things they maintain their capability. Their satellites will grow really fast, so other SEA nations would most likely align with China than oppose it.

Hanoi had the USSR behind it and it was a 50s tech versus. But I agree that continous bombing is impossible outside the 2000-3000 km range. The SSNs also offer global stike, but cruise missiles are even more precious and there's just 2.

[Rabid]

I see.

So I'll ask : what is the degree of certainty that China would annex South East Asia if given the chance in these conditions ? Would it really be what the Chinese would do in such a situation, or is it just a projection of our own Western(ized) minds ?

[K. A. Pital]

Formal annexing is not even needed, to be strict. China only needs to make them into satellite states (besides, in 1900 colonization isn't viewed as something nations don't do). Like Manchukuo and Japan. Manchukuo was a puppet state, but it had formal sovereignity. Buying out the leaders of these nations with fancy toys is going to be... rather easy.

[Simon_Jester]

Hanoi had the USSR behind it and it was a 50s tech versus.

'60s; there were some rather sophisticated things getting thrown at Vietnam, such as the first laser-guided bombs. More generally, though, the North Vietnamese had foreign support helping to keep them in the war, but that would not have been necessary just to maintain continuity of government and some degree of orderly government. As you note, continuous bombing just breaks down for very ambitious long-range strikes. You might be able to prove a point by bombing, but if the only weapon that can be brought to bear is intercontinental conventional bombing, you're pretty much bluffing and hoping the enemy isn't willing to put your capabilities to the test.

China can just buy rice, I would think- and if they want to get it from Southeast Asia in massive quantities, they'll have to take a hand in the infrastructure, because they want (if not need) enough to feed tens of millions of people. You can talk about British hijacking of Indian harvests, but even there there was significant infrastructure, particularly railroads. One of the big reasons the 1940s-era famine-inducing harvests were even possible was that the British had spent decades developing the rail and port infrastructure to ship grain out of India. Otherwise, most of the food would simply have stayed roughly where it was.

[K. A. Pital]

That's not the "only" weapon China can use (it has ICBMs and possibly medium-range missiles, though it would be quite reluctant to use any of that overpowering stuff straightaway as not to betray the high end of its delivery capabilities). But your point stands.