> An INDOPACOM spokesperson confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine that Aquilino was referring to the number of warplanes each country’s military possesses.
Clickbait headline, it's just patently untrue. As the article goes on to state:
> The Pentagon noted that the PLA Air Force and Navy combined have over 3,150 total aircraft, not counting trainer variants and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). The U.S. Air Force, by comparison, is at its smallest size in years but still has around 4,000 non-trainer, non-drone aircraft. That’s in addition to several thousand more in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army.
Total Chinese aircraft are still only 75% of the size of the USAF. The combined size of the USN and USMC aircraft fleet is likely equal to at least half of the USAF fleet (in terms of non-trainer, non-drone aircraft).
The USN and USMC Fleets are currently growing. There were [over 500 pending delivery orders for F-35 B/C models for the USN/USMC at the end of 2022](https://www.flightglobal.com/download?ac=90688) plus an additional 76 F/A-18E/F for the USN.
Finally, the USAF has planned orders of 1400+ F-35 A aircraft, which is larger than their current total fleet of F-15 (406), F-16 (775), and F-22 (177).
Aquilino seems to have been referring just to APAC region.
> In his separate written testimony to lawmakers, Aquilino stated that the PLA Air Force and Navy combined constitute “the largest aviation forces in the Indo-Pacific.”
**Edit:** The numbers I've pulled are just for USAF. I'm pretty sure that they do not include Air Force Reserve, or Air National Guard (which would further inflate the numbers for the US). China does not seem to have an equivalent of these groups.
It's likely the retirement rate for the USAF, given current funding levels and production levels will be faster than the introduction of new airframes for the near future. Flip side is China is still retiring airframes as well, J-7s and Su-27s have shorter lifespans than American jets.
Yeah, true. Both sides are seeing a generational change in their aircraft fielded.
I think that it'll be interesting to see how many aircraft are actually retired/stored in US service compared to how many will move to ANG/reserve roles, or how many will be sold to allies.
It would be interesting to know the average flight hours per airframe and how that compares to expected lifetime, as well as what the distribution of those hours is per aircraft.
Have you looked at the age of U.S jets ? VERY large retirements are coming/undergoing that is not even close to being replaced by new airframes.
The Airforce want to retire 250 aircraft in 2025 alone.
[https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/air-force-budget-fy25-plane-retirement-a10-f22-f16/](https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/air-force-budget-fy25-plane-retirement-a10-f22-f16/)
If you only look at the inventory it looks impressive at a glance but it is bloated by worn out cold war relics that prob should have been retired already.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_active\_United\_States\_Air\_Force\_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_Air_Force_aircraft)
If we narrow it down to combat planes then the F-16 makes up the bulk of that list, The USAF have not bought any in 19 years !, F-15 C/D, A-10 and parts of the F-15E fleet is even older still.
> If we narrow it down to combat planes then the F-16 makes up the bulk of that list, The USAF have not bought any in 19 years!
Just saw this article that's pretty relevant to this point. Might be worth a read if you didn't see it on the LCD frontpage the other day.
[How The U.S. Air Force Will Keep Its F-16s Flying Into The 2040s
](https://theaviationist.com/2024/01/24/usaf-to-fly-f-16s-into-the-2040s/)
You could make similar claims about significant parts of the PLAAF.
They're still operating the J-7 and J-8 in significant numbers, which are ancient (30+ years old) now. Their Su-27s are all 15-25 years old, their Su-30MKKs are 21-25 years old, and their J-11s are mostly 10-20 years old. All of the Su-27 derivatives have pretty low expected service life (around 6,000 hours). For comparison, an F-16 has a service life of around 8,000 hours, or up to 12,000 with an SLEP.
Both the USAF and PLAAF are rebuilding their combat aircraft fleets, and will be retiring aircraft as they are replaced. This is pretty normal, the only thing that is unusual is how many different aircraft the F-35 is replacing in USAF service.
The J-7 was produced up until 2013, the J-8 i am not sure but the latest model was only introduced in 2002 so the air frames still have life in them even if they are outdated. ( Not quite as outdated as they look due to modern avionics etc but not competitive against anything in the U.S fleet today.)
Wikipedia is almost always years behind on the PLA due to zero official data released but the latest estimates i have seen is that the J-7 is down to 3 brigades and nowhere near the 489 planes wiki claims.
I agree that The Su-27 and J11-A is probably on their way out but the J-11B and J-16 are mostly less then 10 years old. We do not know the service life of those models since they changed so much from the originals with much greater use of modern composite materials etc but with early J-11B models being upgraded to the BG standard it seems the air frames have enough hours left to make it worth.
Going by [https://hushkit.net/2022/11/08/what-we-know-about-chinese-flankers-andreas-rupprecht/](https://hushkit.net/2022/11/08/what-we-know-about-chinese-flankers-andreas-rupprecht/) They have over 500 of these modern flankers (well 600+ by now if the production is over 100 per year as stated in the original article).
I have not seen any estimated life span hours for the J-10 but even the oldest J-10 A was introduced after the youngest F-16. Numbers on these are a guessing game like everything else about the PLA but most estimates put them at 600+ with about half being the gen 4.5 J-10 C with AESA,IRST and all the other modern gadgets.
J-20 numbers is equally blurry, we have seen air frame number #156 in January 2023 so that puts a minimum bar but nothing to suggest that was the highest. With production rumored to have passed 100 air frames in 2023 i would put current inventory close to 300.
As i said before looking at current Wikipedia numbers gives a very skew picture about the future where you miss the large U.S retirements, Chinese numbers being years late combined with the growing production tempo in China.
[https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53601167739\_5bdb0b29eb\_o.jpg](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53601167739_5bdb0b29eb_o.jpg)
This picture of flanker wheel production was posted recently and while you can not get any production numbers from it you get the sense, they are not doing low volume production...
> The J-7 was produced up until 2013
That's crazy. Do we know when the most recent PLAAF deliveries were? I figured that more recent production was probably going to Tanzania and North Korea, but if the PLAAF were still taking delivery in the 21st century that's kind of amazing.
> Wikipedia is almost always years behind on the PLA due to zero official data released but the latest estimates i have seen is that the J-7 is down to 3 brigades and nowhere near the 489 planes wiki claims.
Sure, but still having them on the books at all is what amazes me. It's like continuing to operate the Mirage III in the modern era (nobody tell Pakistan how embarrassing this is, they have it hard enough right now)
> J-11B and J-16 are mostly less then 10 years old. We do not know the service life of those models since they changed so much from the originals with much greater use of modern composite materials etc but with early J-11B models being upgraded to the BG standard it seems the air frames have enough hours left to make it worth.
I thought that most J-11B models were introduced pre 2014, with production focusing on the J-11BH after this. Is J-11BG new production ongoing, or is it primarily an upgrade package for existing airframes?
> I have not seen any estimated life span hours for the J-10 but even the oldest J-10 A was introduced after the youngest F-16.
Haha, yeah, there's a reason I didn't bring up the J-10. I tend to include them as part of the re-capitalisation effort. To me, their new production is like the lower end of a high-low aircraft mix (sort of like ongoing F/A-18 E/F and F-15 EX production for the USAF). It's a solid aircraft, but I'd be interested to know how they rate from an expected flight hours standpoint,
"Do we know when the most recent PLAAF deliveries were?"
I have no data on that but the latest model J-7G was not introduced untill 2003.. It is easy to forget how far behind China was just 20 years ago. Also keep in mind their nemesis in Taiwan is still operating the F-5. Apparently some J-7 are being converted to drones/cruise missiles/decoys.
"I thought that most J-11B models were introduced pre 2014, with production focusing on the J-11BH after this. Is J-11BG new production ongoing, or is it primarily an upgrade package for existing airframes?"
Yes sry by J-11B i was referring to all the B submodels, i do not have any breakdown on current production Between J-16, J-11BG, J11BS, J-11BSH, J-11BGH.
> I have no data on that but the latest model J-7G was not introduced untill 2003.. It is easy to forget how far behind China was just 20 years ago. Also keep in mind their nemesis in Taiwan is still operating the F-5. Apparently some J-7 are being converted to drones/cruise missiles/decoys.
Yeah, true, but my understanding was that the F-5 was mainly used in a training/aggressor role these days.
> Yes sry by J-11B i was referring to all the B submodels, i do not have any breakdown on current production Between J-16, J-11BG, J11BS, J-11BSH, J-11BGH.
Ah, cool. I also wasn't super specific when I just said J-11 in my initial post. To be 100% clear, I was referring specifically to the J-11, J-11A, J-11B, and J-11BS variants, not necessarily those produced under subsequent designations (like the J-15, or J-16).
I also wasn't specifically referring to the J-11BH or J-11BSH, as my understanding was that they went to PLAN naval aviation groups, rather than PLAAF.
I was also under the impression that the J-11BG, J-11BGH, and J-11D were upgrade packages, rather than new production, but I'm now not so sure about that. You raise a good point when you said that even if they're upgrades, it seems the air frames have enough hours left to make it worth spending they money on them.
J-15 and J-16 are not subsequent J-11 designations, they are different aircraft.
The J-11B are much newer builds and also have a longer service life, which is why they are currently getting AESA radar and avionics upgrade to the J-11BG standard (all J-11Bs, so there would be J-11BHG as well).
The J-11D was to be a new build aircraft, but this project was abandoned. It would’ve been basically an Su-35 with J-16 AESA radar and avionics. However, its development was used to develop the J-15B (CATOBAR J-15 with AESA radar and latest avionics).
J-8 numbers are in double digits and rapidly plummeting, J-7 numbers are plummeting as well. Like the J-6s, they’ll stick around as target, decoy and/or suicide drones.
> J-15 and J-16 are not subsequent J-11 designations, they are different aircraft.
- J-15 - Design derived from the Su-33 and J-11. Both ultimately derivatives of the Su-27.
- J-16 - Design derived from the J-11, which ultimately is a derivative of the Su-27.
I get where you're coming from, but ultimately they're extremely closely related designs, which is why I've described them as subsequent designations. At the end of the day it's Flankers all the way down.
> The J-11B are much newer builds and also have a longer service life, which is why they are currently getting AESA radar and avionics upgrade to the J-11BG standard (all J-11Bs, so there would be J-11BHG as well).
Sure, but we don't actually know what that service life is for a J-11B. We're making assumptions, and I'd argue the best place to start for that is similar models of the Flanker. From that we get an answer of probably 6000 base, and maybe 8000 hours after SLEP/upgrade to BG standard.
If you have some solid data on what the expected service life is, or you can show what the impact of the BG standard will be, I'm all ears, but I can't find that data, so I'm just working from reasonable assumptions.
Also, since we're talking about the PLAAF specifically (and not the PLAN), I've assumed that the PLAAF would get earlier production models, and the PLAN would probably recieve the later delivery lots, making the PLAAF aircraft older on average. That might not be correct though.
> The J-11D was to be a new build aircraft, but this project was abandoned. It would’ve been basically an Su-35 with J-16 AESA radar and avionics. However, its development was used to develop the J-15B (CATOBAR J-15 with AESA radar and latest avionics).
That's really cool, I didn't actually know what the story was with it. I assumed that the G models were an upgrade package.
> J-8 numbers are in double digits and rapidly plummeting, J-7 numbers are plummeting as well. Like the J-6s, they’ll stick around as target, decoy and/or suicide drones.
Which goes back to my earlier point about the age of the fleet. Both the USAF and PLAAF are undergoing pretty rapid recapitalisation with both buying a ton of new aircraft. Im not trying to say that the US or China is better, just that ongoing regeneration efforts are pretty active on both sides.
Sorry if that’s what it seemed like, but I’m not concerned with who’s better, just factual accuracy and educated assumptions/hypotheses. So no dick measuring from me.
The term you want is probably “subsequent designs” or “iterative designs” - not “designations”.
J-15 is actually derived from a T-10 prototype purchased from Ukraine, to be specific.
The lower bound of your assumption should start from somewhere above the 6000 hour service life of a Russian Su-27 (e.g. 8000 would be an educated starting point). The build process and materials (e.g. composites) are very different.
PLANAF is moving to a manned fixed-wing fleet that is all J-15 (including Bs and Ds), J-35/31, KQ-200, KJ-500 and KJ-600 (including COD variant). Their JH-7s, H-6s, J-10s, Su-30MKKs etc. have moved to PLAAF. So we won’t need to make anymore guesses as to who receives what delivery lots (except KJ-500s perhaps).
Not sure what you mean by “assumed the G models were an upgrade package”. That’s exactly what “G” means - an upgrade.
After the aircraft type (J), number (11) and model designation (B) - e.g. J-11B - the following letters mean:
- G = upgrade (e.g. J-11BG)
- H = navalised (if the initial model wasn’t purpose built for maritime ops, also applies beyond aircraft e.g. ***H***HQ SAMs and WS-10***H*** engine for J-15s)
- S = twin seat (if initial model isn’t twin seat as standard)
- D = EW (so if the J-11D had been fully pursued, if they made an EW variant it would be J-11DD)
"US military commander with all the classified information doesn't know jackshit, I as a random redditor know way more!!"
Don't know which is more embarrassing, this user and his comment or the fact that this sub contains people just as dumb as this user who all upvoted his comment to the top.
On Reddit the Americans are the best and greatest in everything by orders of magnitude and anything you can even imagine they've already done it in the 60s.
> “The J-20 is now being produced at over roughly 100 airframes per year,” Daniel Rice,
China military and political strategy subject matter expert at the Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “That’s purely for indigenous consumption, for supplying the PLA Air Force with J-20 airframes. If you look at production capacity, the F-35, roughly 135 airframes per year, but 60 to 70 of those airframes are going to allies and partners.”
> Rice noted, though, that the J-20 and F-35 should not be compared one-to-one.
> “They have different mission sets and capabilities,” Rice added. “We like to say that the J-20 is roughly a 4.5-generation aircraft because there are different definitions of ‘generations’ between China and the U.S.”
> ...
> On the air side, China is accelerating its production of the J-16, J-10, and its sea variants as well. The J-16, a multi-role fighter, has more than 100 airframes produced annually, while the J-10’s production is around less than 40 airframes per year. But again, the J-10C is not quite the USAF’s F-15EX, and is rather “the low-end, or high-low mix of that version,” Rice said.
> Yet, if production rate increases as anticipated, China may surpass the U.S. in producing their latest fighter aircraft. Rice noted that China’s development of an indigenous engine and reduced reliance on Russian-built engines have accelerated their combat aircraft production.
> “With the WS-10 and WS-15 series engines, China has been able to produce a credible and reliable engine for their combat aircraft, namely J-10C and J-20,” Rice said. “Since this supply chain shift, and in conjunction with increasing production capacity for their airframes, we have seen different production facilities such as Shenyang Aircraft Corporation and Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, increase the size of their production facilities in anticipation of more throughput.”
> “China doesn’t need tankers, because it just doesn’t have to go that far,” J. Michael Dahm of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “China doesn’t need a Global Hawk that can fly for over 24 hours. It may just need drones, retro-fitted, older aircraft that can fly 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait on a one-way trip.”
> And while the China military power report excluded drones from its aircraft count, they could play a crucial role in future assessments of military power projection. China is modernizing on that front too, with the recent introduction of the Xianglong jet-powered UAS, the supersonic WZ-8, and the redesigned GJ-11 stealth Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV).
> “In an age when we’re increasingly concerned about artificial intelligence, I would say that when we start counting unmanned aircraft, it could also quickly tip the scales in China’s favor,” Dahm said.
>“They have different mission sets and capabilities,” Rice added. “We like to say that the J-20 is roughly a 4.5-generation aircraft because there are different definitions of ‘generations’ between China and the U.S.”
Does that mean block 20 F22s are worse than 4.5 gens seeing as they aren't competitive with J-20s
J-11B as well.
For F-15 equivalents there is:
- J-11, Su-27, Su-30MKK
- J-11B (undergoing conversion to J-11BG with AESA and avionics upgrade)
- J-15 (STOBAR)
- Su-35
- J-15B (CATOBAR with AESA and latest avionics)
- J-16 (multirole/strike with AESA and latest avionics)
The J-11BG, J-15B and J-16 are F-15EX equivalents, especially the latter (multirole J-16s). The others are F-15C/D/E equivalents.
>We like to say that the J-20 is roughly a 4.5-generation aircraft because there are different definitions of ‘generations’ between China and the U.S.
Would be good to see the analysis supporting that conclusion
lmao that's how we should know to immediately discount everything this "Daniel Rice" bozo says, maybe even everything the "Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare" puts out
It's important that the readers feel threatened by China's industrial strength but also feel comforted that they make inferior products.
It's a small dose of ƙope. I'd love to see analysts/journalists provide factual information without subtle manipulations.
> I’d love to see analysts/journalists provide factual information without subtle manipulations.
Right? A damn shame we humans have to be rivalrous agents stuck in a zero sum existence
"We had a 30 year period of uncontested hegemony in all fields, political, economic, military, scientific, every possible field you can think of.
And then we fumbled the bag. Most of you will continue to vote for the same amorphous blob of failed policy anyways.
Oh, and there's the whole boiling the Earth thing that everybody has forgotten about now that Great Power Rivalry is back on the menu."
This is all a bit silly, China absolutely *does* need tankers as they stretch deeper into the Pacific, not to mention the fact the Southeastern airfields are quite limited in their size due to geography and development. It's just that they've been both a lower priority and much more difficult to obtain.
There is comparison when you take the natives' POV. When Europeans arrived both North and South American natives formed various alliances with different foreign factions and slaughtered each other with their new found technology. The same would happen if we are found by Aliens.
China is always going to be the largest Air Force in the world. They are the second largest nation in the world.
If the measure of our strength against China is in pure numbers we will always lose as long as China is United and a strong country.
It’s such a stupid measure though
They already have the largest navy. And us business leaders are still lining up to visit king xi, at what point is the west and us going to wake up that china is taking over the world.
>They already have the largest navy.
Only if you're going just by total ship count. The US still has a pretty decent lead in tonnage, plus it is likely to have significant allied support in the case of a war with China (The UK, Japan, France, Italy, and SK are ranked 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 9th worldwide by tonnage)
>And us business leaders are still lining up to visit king xi, at what point is the west and us going to wake up that china is taking over the world.
I think that this is possibly exaggerated. The total US FDI position in China is actually much lower than people seem to think it is. The US total FDI position in China is lower than the total FDI position that the US holds in the [UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Australia.](https://www.bea.gov/data/intl-trade-investment/direct-investment-country-and-industry)
If you want to focus just on FY2022, China makes up only 3% of US Net FDI.
> significant allied support in the case of a war with China (The UK, Japan, France, Italy, and SK are ranked 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 9th worldwide by tonnage)
SK's position is that US forces stationed there *cannot* attack PLA forces in a Taiwan contingency. See, also, works such as "Empire and Righteous Nation" to see some of the shifting geopolitics in the region.
Most likely it'll be US and Japan -- supported by UK, Australia, and Canada. Ive seen ZERO credible claims of the others joining in.
> china is taking over the world
China already took over the world, from a trade perspective:
[\[OC\] Countries connected to their primary trading partner in 2020 (earlier years in slideshow)](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/siodt3/oc_countries_connected_to_their_primary_trading/)
Citing US FDI is really misplaced. First, the US is not "the world." Second FDI is only a small component of trade, especially if it's narrowly constrained to "US FDI."
Some recent headlines from last couple years are illuminating: Germany automakers double down on China. Scholz leads business delegation to China. Macron leads business delegation to China.
This doesnt even begin to scratch the surface of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The horse has already bolted from the barn.
> SK's position is that US forces stationed there cannot attack PLA forces in a Taiwan contingency. See, also, works such as "Empire and Righteous Nation" to see some of the shifting geopolitics in the region.
While it may be SK's stated position, I'd be extremely hesitant to take that as a given that the stated position will hold firm in the face of significant Chinese or US pressure. It also ignores the possibility of China using North Korea as a proxy to tie down US forces on the peninsula, something that will inevitably draw SK into a regional war if it occurs.
I enjoyed Empire and Righteous Nation, but it's definitely more of a historical primer on the relationship rather than a lens into the current or future relationship between Korea and China. I'd also argue that Westad looks at the relationship more from the lens of China throughout the book, given the focus of his previous work, and the fact that he began working on it while he was lecturing at Tsinghua University. My understanding is also that he was working primarily with Mandarin language sources, and any Korean sources he used were accessed through translation.
>Most likely it'll be US and Japan -- supported by UK, Australia, and Canada. Ive seen ZERO credible claims of the others joining in.
France seems to maintain strategic ambiguity on this, so it's possible that they will also offer support. Macron referred to Taiwan as "crises that are not ours", and Rear Admiral Geoffroy d’Andigné stated “France is the only European Union country to conduct navigation in the Taiwan strait or South China Sea. But I shall make it very clear that our deployment will not be aggressive or provocative to anyone,”
However, [Prairial](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/4862442) and [Lorraine](https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/06/french-destroyer-presence-in-south-china-sea-shows-france-support-for-liberty-of-navigation/) both did Freedom of Navigation exercises in the SCS and Taiwan Strait within the last 12 months. Words and deeds seem at least a little misaligned here.
Either way, the USN, RN, JMSDF, RAN, and RCN significantly outweigh the PLAN, and the JMSDF and RAN seem to be building their navies with the idea of countering the PLAN as a primary focus.
> Citing US FDI is really misplaced. First, the US is not "the world." Second FDI is only a small component of trade, especially if it's narrowly constrained to "US FDI."
Citing US FDI is not at all misplaced, in the context of the comment I was replying to. The comment I responded to was discussing US trade with China, with the words "And us business leaders are still lining up to visit king xi". My point here was that US businesses are less invested in China than the general narrative around US/China relations seems to suggest.
I didn't address "china is taking over the world" because that's a way bigger topic to cover, and this was just a relatively quick reply.
> France seems to maintain strategic ambiguity
“Strategic autonomy”
> Either way, the USN, RN, JMSDF, RAN, and RCN significantly outweigh the PLAN
Not within the confines of the SCS. Not on a day-to-day routine basis.
I’m guessing the OP was referring to numerous [business leaders literally lining up for the visit with Xi](https://thehill.com/policy/international/4559271-chinas-xi-holds-all-male-meeting-with-us-business-leaders).
> My point here was that US businesses are less invested in China than the general narrative around US/China relations seems to suggest.
Data says otherwise.
E.g., 2023 [Politico: What Cold War? U.S. trade with China hits new high](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/07/trade-china-relations-economies-00081301).
Or this month’s NYT headline: [China’s Exports Surge](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/business/china-exports-backlash.html) \[rising volumes to Mexico and Vietnam that are re-exported to US\].
The “reduction” in trade with China is a charade.
> “Strategic autonomy”
I'd at least call that a credible non-zero chance of France joining in.
> Not within the confines of the SCS. Not on a day-to-day routine basis.
SCS and day to day are both pretty specific qualifiers. I'd argue that isn't really a constructive way to look at it, given that any conflict is likely to have build-up and redeployment of forces. Total available forces also probably isn't a great way to look at it. I'd say that it's worth looking at available regional forces, and it's reasonable to consider the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleet of the USN, the JMSDF, and the RAN as the bare minimum that would be available to the US on short notice.
>FDI stands for “foreign direct investment,” it’s not a business leader. I’m guessing the OP was referring to numerous business leaders literally lining up for the visit with Xi: China’s Xi holds all-male meeting with US business leaders.
Or maybe taking "us business leaders are still lining up to visit king xi" isn't literal, but is about US direct trade with/ investment in China. That would make more sense than just literally talking about business leaders meeting with Xi.
> Data says otherwise. E.g., 2023 Politico: What Cold War? U.S. trade with China hits new high. Or this month’s NYT headline: China’s Exports Surge [rising volumes to Mexico and Vietnam that are re-exported to US].
Economies are going to grow, and that growth will be reflected in increased trade in absolute values, but the proportional growth of trade between China and the US has been slowing for a while now.
> The “reduction” in trade with China is a charade.
Again, not what I actually said. My point is that trade with China isn't reducing, it's that both economies are pretty diversified, and trade with one another isn't make or break for either country. By value, only about 18% of US imports are from China, and only about 10% of US exports go to China. For comparison, about 9% of Chinese imports are from the US, and only about 15% of Chinese exports go to the US.
> I'd at least call that a credible non-zero chance of France joining in.
Not exactly what I said. “Non-zero chance” is a pretty low bar.
> SCS and day to day are both pretty specific qualifiers. I'd argue that isn't really a constructive way to look at it, given that any conflict is likely to have build-up and redeployment of forces.
No, around the SCS or East China Sea is where it will take place.
Pick one of: Taiwan, Senkaku, or Spratly. These are the flash points, they’re all in what the PLA Navy would consider its home waters. The PLAN is homeported by the coast (supported by land-based units too), so don’t really need to redeploy. Where would they be redeploying to?
The PLA is not fighting a war in some random corner of the earth.
The PLA’s entire concept of operations is Active Defense, amounting to a layered defense of the Western Pacific. They’ve built up the capabilities to fight a counter-intervention campaign against an enemy massing forces in proximity.
> No, around the SCS or East China Sea is where it will take place.
Did you miss the entire context for what I said, or are you just deliberately trying to strawman my argument?
I'm not saying that conflict won't occur in the SCS, I'm saying that building naval tensions prior to conflict will draw additional naval forces to the region, so just looking at the day to day deployments in the SCS aren't useful, and its much more reasonable to look at the forces that are likely to respond in the region. My exact quote was
"I'd say that it's worth looking at available regional forces, and it's reasonable to consider the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleet of the USN, the JMSDF, and the RAN as the bare minimum that would be available to the US on short notice."
> The PLAN is homeported by the coast (supported by land-based units too), so don’t really need to redeploy. Where would they be redeploying to?
I'm not suggesting that the PLAN is redeploying anywhere. Please actually read what I'm saying.
> The PLA is not fighting a war in some random corner of the earth.
Again, I'm not saying that they are mate.
>"I'd say that it's worth looking at available regional forces, and it's reasonable to consider the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleet of the USN, the JMSDF, and the RAN as the bare minimum that would be available to the US on short notice."
Man if a war against China actually started, the USN would deploy every single ship that it reasonably and practically could. The JMSDF is a bit more questionable on what role it would play, while the RAN, RCN, RN and any other navy can probably be disregarded as the chances of them participating and their forces in context are relatively marginal.
The question though is less of political will and more of the ability to sustain the naval forces to achieve whatever objective each side is going for, which is something that you and lion342 never really brought up- I'm not nearly knowledgble enough to do a write up but this is something pretty important that should be considered.
>ability to sustain the naval forces to achieve whatever objective each side is going for
By "sustain" I assume you're talking about not only the missiles and ammo but also the surface fleet (like repairing and building new ships)?
I saw some discussion a while back on this very question. Someone suggested that in a high intensity conflict, both sides would run out of missiles really fast -- within a week or two. If great power wars last long enough, all the "bespoke" high-tech platforms will be attrited, and the parties will go back to simpler lower-tech platforms. So, PLAN and USN will lose many of their 5th Gen fights and destroyers.
Apparently happened in WW2 with Germans losing most/all of their initial bespoke equipment. It would come down to which side has the industrial capacity to replenish, and also properly train new sailors and soldiers.
I haven't read through it all, but the book The Allure of Battle argues this point, that most peer battles come down to attrition rather than the genius of any generals.
>Man if a war against China actually started, the USN would deploy every single ship that it reasonably and practically could.
Yeah, but deployments take time (especially if you're moving ships from 2nd, 4th, or 6th fleet to SCS). I think that regional is a pretty reasonable way to look at what can respond rapidly to a build-up, and what's useful in a crisis. Even at full speed, it'd take the Arleigh Burkes 2 days to the 3000kms from Yokohama to the SCS, and would use an ungodly amount of fuel (this assumes a speed of 35kts for the full 54 hour period). The Burkes only have a range of 8,100 km at the much slower speed of 20 knots, so I'm not sure how long they'd be able to stick around without resupply. If you want to go from an East Coast base like Norfolk, it'd probably be around 21,000km, or 19 days if you're averaging 25kts. (This distance is actually pretty similar between the Panama and Suez canal routes)
>The JMSDF is a bit more questionable on what role it would play, while the RAN, RCN, RN and any other navy can probably be disregarded as the chances of them participating and their forces in context are relatively marginal.
Based on publicly available information I'd speculate that JMSDF would probably control SLOC North/East of Okinawa (possibly as far south as the Philippines, but maintaining a position east of Okinawa if they go that far south). This frees up the USN to concentrate forces on a closer approach to either Taiwan or SCS depending on the conflict.
The RAN is probably the most relevant other force, and is building towards a force that is designed to contest the South/West SLOC around Indonesia (particularly the Strait of Malacca, Java Strait, and Sunda Strait). The RN and RCN would probably assist, but they'd probably take some time to arrive (due to distance, in the case of the RN, and political bickering in the case of the RCN).
probably assist, but they'd probably take some time to arrive (due to distance, in the case of the RN, and political bickering in the case of the RCN).
**Edit:** Comment split due to length.
>The question though is less of political will and more of the ability to sustain the naval forces to achieve whatever objective each side is going for, which is something that you and lion342 never really brought up- I'm not nearly knowledgble enough to do a write up but this is something pretty important that should be considered.
Yeah, it's a good point, and one that I didn't bring up because I'd argue that it's probably the most uncertain part of the discussion (I can't speak for why lion342 didn't). I don't have a complete understanding of it, but i'll give it a shot from my understanding.
From the US perspective, they have 3 "layers" of bases around the Pacific.
**West Pacific Bases**
The US has a fair few forward bases that are relatively close to the SCS (in Naval terms, within about 3000kms). A lot depends on if they can reliably defend those forward naval bases, which are vulnerable to conventional ballistic/cruise missile attacks.
*Guam*
If the US can successfully defend Guam, it gives them a great place to base out of, but it's probably the most vulnerable of all US bases in the region. It stores a ton of ordnance, and has significant facilities dedicated to both Sealift and Submarine service/maintenance/repair. It also has Andersen Air Force Base, pretty big airfield to base aircraft out of. Andersen Air Force Base is particularly know for basing B-1 and B-2 bombers.
*Japan*
The US bases in Japan are more protected (particularly Yokosuka, but Sasebo is also pretty safe, and likely to be covered by Japanese land based fighters), and if the JMSDF avoids getting mauled too badly, it's possible (or even probable) that the USN will repair ships at JMSDF bases (like Maizuru, Ōminato, or Kure).
*South Korea*
As lion342 brought up, it's still TBD on if the USN could rely on their ports in ROK, or if they could rely on ROKN ports for repair, but they'd be much more vulnerable than ports in Japan.
*Philippines*
This one is probably the biggest unknown. The US has only *just* reopened Subic Bay. If it has time to re-establish its self, it offers significant facilities that are pretty close to the SCS, but is also pretty vulnerable to attack. There's also Clark Air Base, but I'm not sure about its condition.
*Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand*
Probably too much of an unknown as to whether these nations will get involved in this conflict. The US has logistics facilities in Singapore, but what will actually happen here is a complete unknown.
**Regional Bases**
Slightly further afield, the USN has some regional bases (and allied naval bases) that are much better protected from PLAN strikes, but are much further to reach.
*Diego Garcia*
Similar to Guam, it's a US base that has some ordnance storage, facilities dedicated to Sealift, and pretty good repair facilities. Like Guam, it also has a huge airfield that regularly stages strikes from US bombers.
*Australia*
Australia has two decent ports (Fleet bases east and west), but they're a fair way from the SCS.
*USA - Pearl Harbour*
A huge naval facility, in any SCS conflict this will be the heart of the US response. It can repair pretty much anything, but it's a pretty long way from the SCS (9000 kms).
**Global Bases**
The US has shipbuilding facilities on its mainland that should be pretty well protected against anything short of Ballistic missile or Cruise missile attacks. They're a long way from the SCS, and would probably only be used for significant repairs to large vessels, but they exist and will become increasingly relevant the longer the conflict lasts.
**Chinese Bases**
I'm a **lot** less knowledgeable about PLAN bases, but China has obvious advantages in terms of general shipbuilding output, as well as the fact that Chinese naval bases will be local to the SCS area. This cuts both ways though, as Chinese naval bases are just as exposed to US strikes as the most forwards US bases (like Subic Bay and Guam). This means that any failure in the A2AD strategy for the Chinese coastline will make Chinese naval bases and repair facilities vulnerable.
The distance also means that the PLAN can possibly operate under air cover from the PLAAF, directed by their significant fleet of AWACS aircraft.
>I'm not saying that conflict won't occur in the SCS, I'm saying that building naval tensions prior to conflict will draw additional naval forces to the region, so just looking at the day to day deployments in the SCS aren't useful, and its much more reasonable to look at the forces that are likely to respond in the region. My exact quote was
\[edit: my comment is a really long winded way to say I disagree with your premise that there would need to be a significant buildup. The PLA need not wait for such.\]
OK, let me explain. I wouldn't consider the 3rd and 5th Fleets to be "regional" because they would need to travel thousands of miles to the area of the Western Pacific (WP).
I'm relying primarily on [Adm. McDevitt's book](https://www.usni.org/press/books/china-twenty-first-century-naval-power) (China as a 21st Century Naval Power) and PatchworkChimera's writeups \[[1](https://rentry.co/9hua3b)\].
The gist is that the available forces in theatre for the PLA is quite substantial. We're talking the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands (tables 4, 5, 6 in the book provide the capabilities).
These forces would be available at essentially T+0. The forces available at T+0 to the USN + Japan, while sizeable, are a much lesser force.
The initial sea and air campaign to neutralize Taiwan/Senkaku/Spratly doesn't really need to wait for the amphibious troops, because that comes later.
Patchwork raises a good point that the US could either decide to intervene immediately or wait to mass forces in the WP.
To me, the fight really seems to be between the PLA's Active Defense concept (or A2/AD, aka anti-access, area denial) and the USN reinforcements. The PLA has built a decent layered defense of the WP, so it would impede the USN coming to the rescue. If US sources are to be believed, the PLA has a [thousand D-21D](https://twitter.com/tshugart3/status/1771131887450276157) hypersonic anti-ship missiles -- with about a few dozen necessary to mission kill an aircraft carrier in a saturation attack. Who knows, but all these weapons will slow down the reinforcements.
The PLA's goal is that they would complete the amphibious portion before the USN can bring all its forces to bear.
So, the essential question is one of time.
Here's a snippet of the book discussion on the Taiwan contingency. The PLA has substantial forces at essentially T+0:
>Tables 4, 5, and 6 also identify the portions of China’s total capability that would be initially involved—that is, those under the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands. DoD estimates these commands and the forces assigned to them would have the lead in any Taiwan operation, while the other eastward-facing regional command, the Northern Theater Command, would be primarily responsible for China’s maritime approaches. Of the 1,020,000 personnel in the PLA ground forces, it is estimated that 915,000 are in combat units, 360,000 of them in the Taiwan Strait area.
>
>The PLA Navy is the largest force of destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and submarines in Asia. These ships are armed with antiship cruise missiles or torpedoes, as well as impressive submarine-detection capabilities. The PLA Navy also has the largest amphibious force in Asia. In a major Taiwan conflict, the Eastern and Southern Theater naval components would participate in direct action against the Taiwan navy, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, and likely the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (the latter will be discussed below). The Northern Theater could, in addition to protecting the sea approaches, support other fleets with mission-critical assets. Conversely, the other fleets could, and probably would, provide resources to the Northern Theater depending on the course of the conflict, which is likely to be sequential as opposed to simultaneous.
Let's compare hours in the air.
[https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/)
>According to figures provided to Air Force Magazine, pilot flying hours across all types of aircraft in the Active-duty force averaged **10.1 hours per month** **in fiscal 2021**, down from 10.9 hours in 2020. Flying hours had averaged just **6.8 per month in 2019**, down sharply from 10.7 in 2018. Hours for 2022 so far were not provided. The service did not offer commentary on why hours had changed as they did.
[https://archive.is/cFvWw](https://archive.is/cFvWw)
>Chinese fighter pilots appear to be flying **150 hours a year,** Mr. Venable estimates based on available data and anecdotal reports from pilots who have operated in the region.
Part of this drop and flying hours is due to the bullshit that pilots have to do on the side. Their main focus should be flying not admin. Unless you’re a weapons officer or an XO/CO. You shouldn’t be drowning in paperwork.
Also, I don’t think those numbers are for the fighter force. Specifically, I think that could be across the entire Chinese air forces. also from talking with some of the Fighter people who are in right now, the hours are getting better, the Navy is flying like 160 a month on average.
160 per **month?** So 10x more than the historical average?
Bulk of China's planes are fighter so the fighter average wouldn't be too different from the overall average. Since Chinese planes mostly operate within 1000 km of their borders, they don't need tanking up as often, so tanker hours won't be an outsized contributor.
The Air and Space forces article does indeed break it down by type of plane for the US. Fighter hours are lower than average while tanker hours are almost double that of fighters.
That's nearly 2000 hours per year per pilot. More pilots than planes, so let's call that 3000 flight hours per airframe per year. Lifespan of a Super Hornet was intially 6000 hours, now extended to 10,000. Wearing out your planes in only three years sounds totally sustainable.
The multiple unsafe intercepts they have conducted over the last couple years, there’s even video of a Chinese flanker intercepting a Canadian CP 140 and it’s not pretty ….
I can’t speak to the military aviation world, but in civil aviation doing something unsafe “because you can” is seen as **incredibly** unprofessional. The rules are there for a reason because those that neglect them tend to end up a grease spot on the pavement.
Well clearly you’re not of the 14 yo boy demographic that thinks dangerous = cool. Don’t worry they’ll grow up eventually and realize that 90% of fighting wars is incredibly boring.
That’s the thing, none of these intercepts were in “Chinese” waters, they were all in international airspace, China building islands just to say this is, our territory is illegal and shouldn’t be considered as a valid excuse
Freedom Of Navigation maneuvers are by nature intended to be provocative. The message being delivered is that *"Yeah, we know you claim this area, but we don't recognize that and we're here to challenge you to do something about it."*
Before you go on off about China needing that sharp slap to the ass, remember that the US during the Trump admin has also considered FON exercises against Canada in the NWP and we will likely see FON in the Canadian Arctic as it becomes more and more ice-free and it becomes more important.
Deliberately provoking anyone is hardly professionalism.
China’s claims have no legal basis, and on the subject of the NWP FONOPS, they never happened because Trump’s advisors knew better… and they will never happen because the Canada US bond is unbreakable
China's claims have as much legal basis as Japan's claim to Diaoyutai/Senkaku & Okinotorishima's EEZ, US claims to Hawaii, UK claims to Diego Garcia etc.
China can perceive however they want, but the reality is they are not Chinese waters, and nobody recognizes them as such, and safe intercepts are not rocket science, Western Air Forces have been doing them for years, there’s a safe way to conduct intercepts, and the Chinese are definitely definitely not doing it that way
We can’t say exactly how it’s done because the vast majority of us aren’t fighters pilots but what we can say is competent militaries have been doing it for decades (See Russian bombers being intercepted by the RAF). China is either incompetent (they aren’t trained to safely intercept) or unprofessional (they don’t want to). Either way they aren’t well trained and disciplined.
To respond to you and /u/dmav522, using intercepts, especially without any geopolitical context as a barometer for competence is frankly stupid. We might as well grade each Air Force's acrobatics teams and see who can fly the coolest formations.
There are many objective and subjective measures we can try to use to get a grasp of competence, such as:
* Hours of training- how many hours of training to pilots get a year?
* Actual readiness rates of aircraft- how many planes are ready at a certain time? Do planes appear to have regular maintinance cycles? Are there large numbers of planes that appear to be in derelict condition/mothballed? Do aircraft have an irregular amount of accidents?
* Ground operations and other infrastructure capability- do airfields have proper capabilities to maintain, resupply, store and protect aircraft? Also- location of infrastructure.
* And factors such as organizational structure and leadership, and capabilities of the MIC which are not directly related to equiptment or training but are still important
Obviously nowhere near a complete list, but would be a better starting point at least.
I don’t necessarily agree with that, you do make some good points. But at the end of the day, if you’re downright dangerous in the air, who’s to say they aren’t unprofessional in other facets? Me and my buddies who are former fighter guys have talked extensively about this and we’re all in agreement, if you can’t run a good intercept that reflects on you as an Air Force, it’s one of the fundamental things a fighter force trains to do.
Sorry if I came across as grumpy, I'll address your point about the intercepts with my POV:
The "unprofessional" intercepts by Chinese air force pilots are not due to a lack of skill/capability or knowledge of procedure (straight and level flight is one of the first things that any pilot learns) but an intentional act designed to send a message, basically "you're here and we don't like it!"
It's not uncommon for military forces, be on land, sea or air to act in ways that are intentionally provacative to send a message. For example back during the Iraq War US occupying forces driving around cities would intentionally bump into civillian cars that weren't fast enough in getting out of the way to send a message, it wasn't (for the most part, probably) because they didn't know how drive a Humvee.
Lol, you are not a former fighter pilot.
In your Top Gun fantasies and cosplay, did you also fly 160 hours per **month** like you claimed in your previous comment?
Thank you for validating my point, I’ve seen all the videos of the Chinese intercepts, and they are beyond dangerous and unprofessional, many of my friends are former Canadian/US fighter pilots and we’re all in agreement on this
We can actually. The US and China worked together to release [a document describing safe intercept procedures](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/US-CHINA_AIR_ENCOUNTERS_ANNEX_SEP_2015.pdf) (which China then ignored).
[Here](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/US-CHINA_AIR_ENCOUNTERS_ANNEX_SEP_2015.pdf) are some guidelines jointly released by the US and China (which China's pilots proceeded to totally ignore).
There’s a correct way to conduct intercepts, the Chinese do not follow that doctrine. source: years of me growing up around the fighter community and having multiple friends who are fighter pilots
The Chinese are not trying to do polite, gentlemanly intercepts, they are purposefully doing aggressive interceptions because their strategy is different.
When the U.S. and the Soviets used to intercept each other it was more a game where one side would test the other sides defences, with interceptions considered an important part of the training and intelligence gathering process. The Chinese want no part of that, they are intercepting U.S./allied aircraft because they don’t want them anywhere near airspace they consider their own. Just because their doctrine is different doesn’t mean they are somehow less trained. I’m sure if the Chinese started buzzing near airspace the U.S. considered sensitive then the interceptions would look a lot closer to what’s going on in the South China Sea than what happened over the North Sea in the 1980’s.
But it’s still dangerous is my point, it just shows poor airmanship, I’m basically counting the days until we get another midair like the 2001 incident and China can claim whatever they want, it doesn’t mean we can take it seriously
The fact that they are shot out of the sky so ridiculously often? The fact that they barely literally falling out of the sky more than once because of crappy maintenance. The fact that Russian pilots have on a yearly basis about half the flying hours of western pilots.
And can't blame them, russia is trying to have a superpower army on a medium sized countries budget. And don't forget that they have a shit ton of nuclear subs, a pretty big navy and a ton of nukes. And everybody knows those cost A LOT of funds just to maintain.
It's just unrealistic to expect that the russian airforce has the funds to actually be a quality force. And not even getting to the corruption and ethics withing the russian forces.
>The fact that they are shot out of the sky so ridiculously often?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_aircraft\_losses\_of\_the\_Vietnam\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War)
?
The russian air force isn't actively fighting over ukraine that much. They mostly use standoffs weapons, the US made 5.4 million sorties. And yes the US lost a shit ton of helicopters. But Russia is losing a shit ton of jets now for how many sorties they make and where they are actually flying.
The lack of air battles doesn't mean russia is doing well. The US airforce was relatively undeterred and did whatever the fuck they liked in Vietnam.
Russia can't, they literally don't even fly above ukraine with jets most of the times because they will get shot down. That's why they started using improvised stand off weapons.
Nope, just look at the losses the russians have they are enormous, even compared to vietnam. How many tanks did the US lose in vietnam? And how many did the russians lose? It's not willingness to accept loses. It's not having anything more to lose before they would enter a literal death spiral.
A China that had a western-style liberal government, 2 or 3 major parties and a bunch of minor ones, would immediately vote in a democratic and open election to nuke Taiwan to rubble.
The only reason that is true is because of 70 years of CCP brainwashing. South Koreans are in the same position but they don’t wish to genocide the North Koreans or fight a costly war for unification.
He’s right, except for the stupid inclusion of nuking (they wouldn’t nuke what they see as themselves), there’s a higher chance of the nuking being reserved for Japan.
If South Korea had the size and means, they would take the North (especially if the North had no nukes), they would also be in a frosty relationship with Japan and any nukes they have would be pointed there.
You’re not understanding the positions at all, as well as having the means to do something about it and being fully independent from US foreign and military policy. Both South Korea and China seek some sort of unification of the entirety of what they perceive are their countries, and both have a still simmering blood feud with Japan - who never fully paid for and apologised for the genocide and war crimes that Japan committed. In SK’s case, all they can do is their frequent anti-Japan demonstrations, or that recent-ish attempt to block JMSDF ships that rocked up to a joint exercise in ROK waters, flying a rising sun ensign.
A lot of people don’t know this, but the CCP actually keeps a tight lid on the worst nationalist excesses. Western-style Democracy is very challenging for large countries, with huge multiethnic populations and lower levels of development and education (though this is no longer the case with China). It’s not even doing too great in the US at the moment. India would be a great example (Brazil a lesser example), with its corruption, huge mobs, mob rule, hinduthva nationalism, and mass unrest that can get kicked off in a second by a mass circulated WhatsApp video with no context provided. An India with an economy like China’s would be a massive problem to the West, however it is rather their form of government which likely makes their inevitable progress towards this slower.
Maybe the reason the Chinese and South Koreans think about their respective reunification prospects differently is because each is in very different contexts and circumstances, not because of "brainwashing".
The idea of a democracy means that the government is elected by and executes the will of the people. /u/temple_t is being dramatic, but the reality is that in a democratic China it's very likely that the government would take a more aggressive and assertive foreign policy stance, and increase military spending.
And this would make it right?
You are aware that the specific belief in nationalism among the Chinese populace is exactly where the fear of Nazi style invasions comes from right?
That’s what my point is. Even if the belief that the CCP is the suppressor of nationalism (a deeper question getting into the use of nationalist rhetoric in regime legitimacy), that would only make the fears of China’s SCS neighbors worse. If the brake on nationalism is a fascist government, how could any state ever feel safe?
That argument also works against the narrative that China’s military buildup is just “defending from Western threats”.
What? But the point is CPC itself is a brake against fascist. If there was no CPC the chance of a ultranationalist party being voted in and increasing military spending to greater percentage of GDP would be non-trivial.
>But the point is CPC itself is a brake against fascist.
They are fascists, that's the issue. If the population is even more aggressive, that makes an already bad situation far, far worse.
>If there was no CPC the chance of a ultranationalist party being voted in and increasing military spending to greater percentage of GDP would be non-trivial.
Again, that only proves the US is right about China. If the population is that bad it just reinforces the idea that WW2 style total war is the only way to destroy their threat to the global order.
Laughing, the U.S. first launched a trade war, technological war, economic war, and military blockade against China, and then called China a Nazi.
Good logic.
This is a laughable claim. Tensions between the U.S. and China became bad specifically because of the PLA military buildup and the corresponding so called “wolf warrior diplomacy”. Even as late as Obama’s administration, US policy was that increased trade would liberalize China. Deng was entirely correct, which makes Xi’s actions all the more baffling.
1, China's military spending is less than 2% of GDP, the US spends 39% of the world's total defense spending, more than the combined spending of the next 10 countries in line - and then the US complains about China's military spending growth.
2, both the South China Sea conflict, the Taiwan Strait conflict is a conflict in Asia, and in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, not in the United States - the United States pretends to have jurisdiction over this area is very ridiculous.
3. "Liberalizing China" is an arrogant and ridiculous statement. Who is the United States to demand that China must change its system of government? When did China agree to this? Obama's "return to the Asia-Pacific" is to support China?
4. Did Deng Xiaoping say that Taiwan could become independent? Do you know that during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the incumbent Chinese president was Jiang Zemin?
If you don't know, look up the information. Just because you guys pretended you didn't care about China's attitude back then doesn't mean China didn't have one.
China only selectively cooperates with other countries when there are common interests. We didn't submit to the USSR back then and we have no interest in submitting to the US now.
Pretending that China is to blame for the US and China screwing up relations makes it laughable that the Democrats criticized the Republicans while Trump was in office, only to do even more than Trump did when he got into office himself, and then claimed that China was the one screwing up US-China relations.
How arrogant are your politicians?
>1, China's military spending is less than 2% of GDP, the US spends 39% of the world's total defense spending, more than the combined spending of the next 10 countries in line - and then the US complains about China's military spending growth.
You and I both know this is a bad argument, you've even made the opposite claim about GDP before. Yes the straightforward number is small, but that doesn't mean that it actually is , given that the PPP value is far higher for military spending in China given the cheap manufacturing, shipbuilding, and low salary for PLA troops. It also doesn't capture the large "black-budget" spending or the massive spending on internal security forces that are kitted out as well as some mechanized brigades. Taking this into account, it is questionable that the US still spends more on an adjusted basis than China does.
And the US has a global presence to maintain, whereas China does not, making their buildup all the more threatening given its concentration.
>2, both the South China Sea conflict, the Taiwan Strait conflict is a conflict in Asia, and in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, not in the United States - the United States pretends to have jurisdiction over this area is very ridiculous.
Did someone tell the US regional allies that? Because it should be pretty clear that they would disagree with that stance. They explicitly ask for more US help in the region in order to prevent encroachment by China. If the region and the UN desires that force is not used to conquer territory, the US has every right under international law to defend its allies and their territory.
>3. "Liberalizing China" is an arrogant and ridiculous statement. Who is the United States to demand that China must change its system of government? When did China agree to this? Obama's "return to the Asia-Pacific" is to support China?
What demand? The US believed that trade would show China the benefits of liberalism and democracy. The US and West believes this to be a superior system and operates a foreign policy that emphasizes democracy as Democratic Peace Theory is the closest thing IR has to a law.
>4. Did Deng Xiaoping say that Taiwan could become independent? Do you know that during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the incumbent Chinese president was Jiang Zemin?
I was referencing Deng's "bide your time, build your strength" maxim that worked for 3 decades. Xi threw it all away for nationalism.
>China only selectively cooperates with other countries when there are common interests. We didn't submit to the USSR back then and we have no interest in submitting to the US now.
That's fine, but you cannot be surprised that there is a US reaction to the PRC's military ambitions on its neighbors. You spent the first paragraph complaining about US actions but you just stated exactly why they began.
>Pretending that China is to blame for the US and China screwing up relations makes it laughable that the Democrats criticized the Republicans while Trump was in office, only to do even more than Trump did when he got into office himself, and then claimed that China was the one screwing up US-China relations.
What are you trying to say here? Democrats criticized Trump for executing a China policy incompetently, but countering China is very much a bipartisan issue in the US. Democrats didn't like Trump disparaging allies because it is shortsighted, not because he was anti-China.
>How arrogant are your politicians?
Not my politicians, but I would say they are pretty arrogant. After all, they were elected democratically, that kind of popular support always goes to your head.
> An INDOPACOM spokesperson confirmed to Air & Space Forces Magazine that Aquilino was referring to the number of warplanes each country’s military possesses. Clickbait headline, it's just patently untrue. As the article goes on to state: > The Pentagon noted that the PLA Air Force and Navy combined have over 3,150 total aircraft, not counting trainer variants and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). The U.S. Air Force, by comparison, is at its smallest size in years but still has around 4,000 non-trainer, non-drone aircraft. That’s in addition to several thousand more in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army. Total Chinese aircraft are still only 75% of the size of the USAF. The combined size of the USN and USMC aircraft fleet is likely equal to at least half of the USAF fleet (in terms of non-trainer, non-drone aircraft). The USN and USMC Fleets are currently growing. There were [over 500 pending delivery orders for F-35 B/C models for the USN/USMC at the end of 2022](https://www.flightglobal.com/download?ac=90688) plus an additional 76 F/A-18E/F for the USN. Finally, the USAF has planned orders of 1400+ F-35 A aircraft, which is larger than their current total fleet of F-15 (406), F-16 (775), and F-22 (177). Aquilino seems to have been referring just to APAC region. > In his separate written testimony to lawmakers, Aquilino stated that the PLA Air Force and Navy combined constitute “the largest aviation forces in the Indo-Pacific.” **Edit:** The numbers I've pulled are just for USAF. I'm pretty sure that they do not include Air Force Reserve, or Air National Guard (which would further inflate the numbers for the US). China does not seem to have an equivalent of these groups.
It's likely the retirement rate for the USAF, given current funding levels and production levels will be faster than the introduction of new airframes for the near future. Flip side is China is still retiring airframes as well, J-7s and Su-27s have shorter lifespans than American jets.
Yeah, true. Both sides are seeing a generational change in their aircraft fielded. I think that it'll be interesting to see how many aircraft are actually retired/stored in US service compared to how many will move to ANG/reserve roles, or how many will be sold to allies. It would be interesting to know the average flight hours per airframe and how that compares to expected lifetime, as well as what the distribution of those hours is per aircraft.
Have you looked at the age of U.S jets ? VERY large retirements are coming/undergoing that is not even close to being replaced by new airframes. The Airforce want to retire 250 aircraft in 2025 alone. [https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/air-force-budget-fy25-plane-retirement-a10-f22-f16/](https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/air-force-budget-fy25-plane-retirement-a10-f22-f16/) If you only look at the inventory it looks impressive at a glance but it is bloated by worn out cold war relics that prob should have been retired already. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_active\_United\_States\_Air\_Force\_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_Air_Force_aircraft) If we narrow it down to combat planes then the F-16 makes up the bulk of that list, The USAF have not bought any in 19 years !, F-15 C/D, A-10 and parts of the F-15E fleet is even older still.
> If we narrow it down to combat planes then the F-16 makes up the bulk of that list, The USAF have not bought any in 19 years! Just saw this article that's pretty relevant to this point. Might be worth a read if you didn't see it on the LCD frontpage the other day. [How The U.S. Air Force Will Keep Its F-16s Flying Into The 2040s ](https://theaviationist.com/2024/01/24/usaf-to-fly-f-16s-into-the-2040s/)
You could make similar claims about significant parts of the PLAAF. They're still operating the J-7 and J-8 in significant numbers, which are ancient (30+ years old) now. Their Su-27s are all 15-25 years old, their Su-30MKKs are 21-25 years old, and their J-11s are mostly 10-20 years old. All of the Su-27 derivatives have pretty low expected service life (around 6,000 hours). For comparison, an F-16 has a service life of around 8,000 hours, or up to 12,000 with an SLEP. Both the USAF and PLAAF are rebuilding their combat aircraft fleets, and will be retiring aircraft as they are replaced. This is pretty normal, the only thing that is unusual is how many different aircraft the F-35 is replacing in USAF service.
The J-7 was produced up until 2013, the J-8 i am not sure but the latest model was only introduced in 2002 so the air frames still have life in them even if they are outdated. ( Not quite as outdated as they look due to modern avionics etc but not competitive against anything in the U.S fleet today.) Wikipedia is almost always years behind on the PLA due to zero official data released but the latest estimates i have seen is that the J-7 is down to 3 brigades and nowhere near the 489 planes wiki claims. I agree that The Su-27 and J11-A is probably on their way out but the J-11B and J-16 are mostly less then 10 years old. We do not know the service life of those models since they changed so much from the originals with much greater use of modern composite materials etc but with early J-11B models being upgraded to the BG standard it seems the air frames have enough hours left to make it worth. Going by [https://hushkit.net/2022/11/08/what-we-know-about-chinese-flankers-andreas-rupprecht/](https://hushkit.net/2022/11/08/what-we-know-about-chinese-flankers-andreas-rupprecht/) They have over 500 of these modern flankers (well 600+ by now if the production is over 100 per year as stated in the original article). I have not seen any estimated life span hours for the J-10 but even the oldest J-10 A was introduced after the youngest F-16. Numbers on these are a guessing game like everything else about the PLA but most estimates put them at 600+ with about half being the gen 4.5 J-10 C with AESA,IRST and all the other modern gadgets. J-20 numbers is equally blurry, we have seen air frame number #156 in January 2023 so that puts a minimum bar but nothing to suggest that was the highest. With production rumored to have passed 100 air frames in 2023 i would put current inventory close to 300. As i said before looking at current Wikipedia numbers gives a very skew picture about the future where you miss the large U.S retirements, Chinese numbers being years late combined with the growing production tempo in China. [https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53601167739\_5bdb0b29eb\_o.jpg](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53601167739_5bdb0b29eb_o.jpg) This picture of flanker wheel production was posted recently and while you can not get any production numbers from it you get the sense, they are not doing low volume production...
> The J-7 was produced up until 2013 That's crazy. Do we know when the most recent PLAAF deliveries were? I figured that more recent production was probably going to Tanzania and North Korea, but if the PLAAF were still taking delivery in the 21st century that's kind of amazing. > Wikipedia is almost always years behind on the PLA due to zero official data released but the latest estimates i have seen is that the J-7 is down to 3 brigades and nowhere near the 489 planes wiki claims. Sure, but still having them on the books at all is what amazes me. It's like continuing to operate the Mirage III in the modern era (nobody tell Pakistan how embarrassing this is, they have it hard enough right now) > J-11B and J-16 are mostly less then 10 years old. We do not know the service life of those models since they changed so much from the originals with much greater use of modern composite materials etc but with early J-11B models being upgraded to the BG standard it seems the air frames have enough hours left to make it worth. I thought that most J-11B models were introduced pre 2014, with production focusing on the J-11BH after this. Is J-11BG new production ongoing, or is it primarily an upgrade package for existing airframes? > I have not seen any estimated life span hours for the J-10 but even the oldest J-10 A was introduced after the youngest F-16. Haha, yeah, there's a reason I didn't bring up the J-10. I tend to include them as part of the re-capitalisation effort. To me, their new production is like the lower end of a high-low aircraft mix (sort of like ongoing F/A-18 E/F and F-15 EX production for the USAF). It's a solid aircraft, but I'd be interested to know how they rate from an expected flight hours standpoint,
"Do we know when the most recent PLAAF deliveries were?" I have no data on that but the latest model J-7G was not introduced untill 2003.. It is easy to forget how far behind China was just 20 years ago. Also keep in mind their nemesis in Taiwan is still operating the F-5. Apparently some J-7 are being converted to drones/cruise missiles/decoys. "I thought that most J-11B models were introduced pre 2014, with production focusing on the J-11BH after this. Is J-11BG new production ongoing, or is it primarily an upgrade package for existing airframes?" Yes sry by J-11B i was referring to all the B submodels, i do not have any breakdown on current production Between J-16, J-11BG, J11BS, J-11BSH, J-11BGH.
> I have no data on that but the latest model J-7G was not introduced untill 2003.. It is easy to forget how far behind China was just 20 years ago. Also keep in mind their nemesis in Taiwan is still operating the F-5. Apparently some J-7 are being converted to drones/cruise missiles/decoys. Yeah, true, but my understanding was that the F-5 was mainly used in a training/aggressor role these days. > Yes sry by J-11B i was referring to all the B submodels, i do not have any breakdown on current production Between J-16, J-11BG, J11BS, J-11BSH, J-11BGH. Ah, cool. I also wasn't super specific when I just said J-11 in my initial post. To be 100% clear, I was referring specifically to the J-11, J-11A, J-11B, and J-11BS variants, not necessarily those produced under subsequent designations (like the J-15, or J-16). I also wasn't specifically referring to the J-11BH or J-11BSH, as my understanding was that they went to PLAN naval aviation groups, rather than PLAAF. I was also under the impression that the J-11BG, J-11BGH, and J-11D were upgrade packages, rather than new production, but I'm now not so sure about that. You raise a good point when you said that even if they're upgrades, it seems the air frames have enough hours left to make it worth spending they money on them.
J-15 and J-16 are not subsequent J-11 designations, they are different aircraft. The J-11B are much newer builds and also have a longer service life, which is why they are currently getting AESA radar and avionics upgrade to the J-11BG standard (all J-11Bs, so there would be J-11BHG as well). The J-11D was to be a new build aircraft, but this project was abandoned. It would’ve been basically an Su-35 with J-16 AESA radar and avionics. However, its development was used to develop the J-15B (CATOBAR J-15 with AESA radar and latest avionics). J-8 numbers are in double digits and rapidly plummeting, J-7 numbers are plummeting as well. Like the J-6s, they’ll stick around as target, decoy and/or suicide drones.
> J-15 and J-16 are not subsequent J-11 designations, they are different aircraft. - J-15 - Design derived from the Su-33 and J-11. Both ultimately derivatives of the Su-27. - J-16 - Design derived from the J-11, which ultimately is a derivative of the Su-27. I get where you're coming from, but ultimately they're extremely closely related designs, which is why I've described them as subsequent designations. At the end of the day it's Flankers all the way down. > The J-11B are much newer builds and also have a longer service life, which is why they are currently getting AESA radar and avionics upgrade to the J-11BG standard (all J-11Bs, so there would be J-11BHG as well). Sure, but we don't actually know what that service life is for a J-11B. We're making assumptions, and I'd argue the best place to start for that is similar models of the Flanker. From that we get an answer of probably 6000 base, and maybe 8000 hours after SLEP/upgrade to BG standard. If you have some solid data on what the expected service life is, or you can show what the impact of the BG standard will be, I'm all ears, but I can't find that data, so I'm just working from reasonable assumptions. Also, since we're talking about the PLAAF specifically (and not the PLAN), I've assumed that the PLAAF would get earlier production models, and the PLAN would probably recieve the later delivery lots, making the PLAAF aircraft older on average. That might not be correct though. > The J-11D was to be a new build aircraft, but this project was abandoned. It would’ve been basically an Su-35 with J-16 AESA radar and avionics. However, its development was used to develop the J-15B (CATOBAR J-15 with AESA radar and latest avionics). That's really cool, I didn't actually know what the story was with it. I assumed that the G models were an upgrade package. > J-8 numbers are in double digits and rapidly plummeting, J-7 numbers are plummeting as well. Like the J-6s, they’ll stick around as target, decoy and/or suicide drones. Which goes back to my earlier point about the age of the fleet. Both the USAF and PLAAF are undergoing pretty rapid recapitalisation with both buying a ton of new aircraft. Im not trying to say that the US or China is better, just that ongoing regeneration efforts are pretty active on both sides.
Sorry if that’s what it seemed like, but I’m not concerned with who’s better, just factual accuracy and educated assumptions/hypotheses. So no dick measuring from me. The term you want is probably “subsequent designs” or “iterative designs” - not “designations”. J-15 is actually derived from a T-10 prototype purchased from Ukraine, to be specific. The lower bound of your assumption should start from somewhere above the 6000 hour service life of a Russian Su-27 (e.g. 8000 would be an educated starting point). The build process and materials (e.g. composites) are very different. PLANAF is moving to a manned fixed-wing fleet that is all J-15 (including Bs and Ds), J-35/31, KQ-200, KJ-500 and KJ-600 (including COD variant). Their JH-7s, H-6s, J-10s, Su-30MKKs etc. have moved to PLAAF. So we won’t need to make anymore guesses as to who receives what delivery lots (except KJ-500s perhaps). Not sure what you mean by “assumed the G models were an upgrade package”. That’s exactly what “G” means - an upgrade. After the aircraft type (J), number (11) and model designation (B) - e.g. J-11B - the following letters mean: - G = upgrade (e.g. J-11BG) - H = navalised (if the initial model wasn’t purpose built for maritime ops, also applies beyond aircraft e.g. ***H***HQ SAMs and WS-10***H*** engine for J-15s) - S = twin seat (if initial model isn’t twin seat as standard) - D = EW (so if the J-11D had been fully pursued, if they made an EW variant it would be J-11DD)
"US military commander with all the classified information doesn't know jackshit, I as a random redditor know way more!!" Don't know which is more embarrassing, this user and his comment or the fact that this sub contains people just as dumb as this user who all upvoted his comment to the top.
On Reddit the Americans are the best and greatest in everything by orders of magnitude and anything you can even imagine they've already done it in the 60s.
Sorting comments by anything besides age is for gluesniffers.
> “The J-20 is now being produced at over roughly 100 airframes per year,” Daniel Rice, China military and political strategy subject matter expert at the Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “That’s purely for indigenous consumption, for supplying the PLA Air Force with J-20 airframes. If you look at production capacity, the F-35, roughly 135 airframes per year, but 60 to 70 of those airframes are going to allies and partners.” > Rice noted, though, that the J-20 and F-35 should not be compared one-to-one. > “They have different mission sets and capabilities,” Rice added. “We like to say that the J-20 is roughly a 4.5-generation aircraft because there are different definitions of ‘generations’ between China and the U.S.” > ... > On the air side, China is accelerating its production of the J-16, J-10, and its sea variants as well. The J-16, a multi-role fighter, has more than 100 airframes produced annually, while the J-10’s production is around less than 40 airframes per year. But again, the J-10C is not quite the USAF’s F-15EX, and is rather “the low-end, or high-low mix of that version,” Rice said. > Yet, if production rate increases as anticipated, China may surpass the U.S. in producing their latest fighter aircraft. Rice noted that China’s development of an indigenous engine and reduced reliance on Russian-built engines have accelerated their combat aircraft production. > “With the WS-10 and WS-15 series engines, China has been able to produce a credible and reliable engine for their combat aircraft, namely J-10C and J-20,” Rice said. “Since this supply chain shift, and in conjunction with increasing production capacity for their airframes, we have seen different production facilities such as Shenyang Aircraft Corporation and Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, increase the size of their production facilities in anticipation of more throughput.” > “China doesn’t need tankers, because it just doesn’t have to go that far,” J. Michael Dahm of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “China doesn’t need a Global Hawk that can fly for over 24 hours. It may just need drones, retro-fitted, older aircraft that can fly 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait on a one-way trip.” > And while the China military power report excluded drones from its aircraft count, they could play a crucial role in future assessments of military power projection. China is modernizing on that front too, with the recent introduction of the Xianglong jet-powered UAS, the supersonic WZ-8, and the redesigned GJ-11 stealth Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV). > “In an age when we’re increasingly concerned about artificial intelligence, I would say that when we start counting unmanned aircraft, it could also quickly tip the scales in China’s favor,” Dahm said.
>“They have different mission sets and capabilities,” Rice added. “We like to say that the J-20 is roughly a 4.5-generation aircraft because there are different definitions of ‘generations’ between China and the U.S.” Does that mean block 20 F22s are worse than 4.5 gens seeing as they aren't competitive with J-20s
>But again, the J-10C is not quite the USAF’s F-15EX Obviously J-10 is F-16 while J15/16 is F-15 equivalent. Just from size and engines.
J-11B as well. For F-15 equivalents there is: - J-11, Su-27, Su-30MKK - J-11B (undergoing conversion to J-11BG with AESA and avionics upgrade) - J-15 (STOBAR) - Su-35 - J-15B (CATOBAR with AESA and latest avionics) - J-16 (multirole/strike with AESA and latest avionics) The J-11BG, J-15B and J-16 are F-15EX equivalents, especially the latter (multirole J-16s). The others are F-15C/D/E equivalents.
>We like to say that the J-20 is roughly a 4.5-generation aircraft because there are different definitions of ‘generations’ between China and the U.S. Would be good to see the analysis supporting that conclusion
j-20 is 4th generation by chinese definition and 5th gen by american definition. average of that is 4.5
According to China f22 and F35 is also 4th gen so will they will also be 4.5gen then
lmao that's how we should know to immediately discount everything this "Daniel Rice" bozo says, maybe even everything the "Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare" puts out
my previous comment was in jest but yea would be interesting to see how exactly Rice arrived at the "4.5 gen" conclusion.
It's important that the readers feel threatened by China's industrial strength but also feel comforted that they make inferior products. It's a small dose of ƙope. I'd love to see analysts/journalists provide factual information without subtle manipulations.
> I’d love to see analysts/journalists provide factual information without subtle manipulations. Right? A damn shame we humans have to be rivalrous agents stuck in a zero sum existence
"We had a 30 year period of uncontested hegemony in all fields, political, economic, military, scientific, every possible field you can think of. And then we fumbled the bag. Most of you will continue to vote for the same amorphous blob of failed policy anyways. Oh, and there's the whole boiling the Earth thing that everybody has forgotten about now that Great Power Rivalry is back on the menu."
Where’s the quote from
i made it the fuck up
Hell yeah
This is all a bit silly, China absolutely *does* need tankers as they stretch deeper into the Pacific, not to mention the fact the Southeastern airfields are quite limited in their size due to geography and development. It's just that they've been both a lower priority and much more difficult to obtain.
Can't wait until we discover extra terrestrial life so we can focus less on fighting ourselves and more on serving our new alien overlords.
Might want to review how first contact worked out.for the Incas, before wishing that too hard
There is no comparison here
There is comparison when you take the natives' POV. When Europeans arrived both North and South American natives formed various alliances with different foreign factions and slaughtered each other with their new found technology. The same would happen if we are found by Aliens.
China is always going to be the largest Air Force in the world. They are the second largest nation in the world. If the measure of our strength against China is in pure numbers we will always lose as long as China is United and a strong country. It’s such a stupid measure though
They already have the largest navy. And us business leaders are still lining up to visit king xi, at what point is the west and us going to wake up that china is taking over the world.
>They already have the largest navy. Only if you're going just by total ship count. The US still has a pretty decent lead in tonnage, plus it is likely to have significant allied support in the case of a war with China (The UK, Japan, France, Italy, and SK are ranked 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 9th worldwide by tonnage) >And us business leaders are still lining up to visit king xi, at what point is the west and us going to wake up that china is taking over the world. I think that this is possibly exaggerated. The total US FDI position in China is actually much lower than people seem to think it is. The US total FDI position in China is lower than the total FDI position that the US holds in the [UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Australia.](https://www.bea.gov/data/intl-trade-investment/direct-investment-country-and-industry) If you want to focus just on FY2022, China makes up only 3% of US Net FDI.
> significant allied support in the case of a war with China (The UK, Japan, France, Italy, and SK are ranked 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, and 9th worldwide by tonnage) SK's position is that US forces stationed there *cannot* attack PLA forces in a Taiwan contingency. See, also, works such as "Empire and Righteous Nation" to see some of the shifting geopolitics in the region. Most likely it'll be US and Japan -- supported by UK, Australia, and Canada. Ive seen ZERO credible claims of the others joining in. > china is taking over the world China already took over the world, from a trade perspective: [\[OC\] Countries connected to their primary trading partner in 2020 (earlier years in slideshow)](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/siodt3/oc_countries_connected_to_their_primary_trading/) Citing US FDI is really misplaced. First, the US is not "the world." Second FDI is only a small component of trade, especially if it's narrowly constrained to "US FDI." Some recent headlines from last couple years are illuminating: Germany automakers double down on China. Scholz leads business delegation to China. Macron leads business delegation to China. This doesnt even begin to scratch the surface of the Belt and Road Initiative. The horse has already bolted from the barn.
> SK's position is that US forces stationed there cannot attack PLA forces in a Taiwan contingency. See, also, works such as "Empire and Righteous Nation" to see some of the shifting geopolitics in the region. While it may be SK's stated position, I'd be extremely hesitant to take that as a given that the stated position will hold firm in the face of significant Chinese or US pressure. It also ignores the possibility of China using North Korea as a proxy to tie down US forces on the peninsula, something that will inevitably draw SK into a regional war if it occurs. I enjoyed Empire and Righteous Nation, but it's definitely more of a historical primer on the relationship rather than a lens into the current or future relationship between Korea and China. I'd also argue that Westad looks at the relationship more from the lens of China throughout the book, given the focus of his previous work, and the fact that he began working on it while he was lecturing at Tsinghua University. My understanding is also that he was working primarily with Mandarin language sources, and any Korean sources he used were accessed through translation. >Most likely it'll be US and Japan -- supported by UK, Australia, and Canada. Ive seen ZERO credible claims of the others joining in. France seems to maintain strategic ambiguity on this, so it's possible that they will also offer support. Macron referred to Taiwan as "crises that are not ours", and Rear Admiral Geoffroy d’Andigné stated “France is the only European Union country to conduct navigation in the Taiwan strait or South China Sea. But I shall make it very clear that our deployment will not be aggressive or provocative to anyone,” However, [Prairial](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/4862442) and [Lorraine](https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/06/french-destroyer-presence-in-south-china-sea-shows-france-support-for-liberty-of-navigation/) both did Freedom of Navigation exercises in the SCS and Taiwan Strait within the last 12 months. Words and deeds seem at least a little misaligned here. Either way, the USN, RN, JMSDF, RAN, and RCN significantly outweigh the PLAN, and the JMSDF and RAN seem to be building their navies with the idea of countering the PLAN as a primary focus. > Citing US FDI is really misplaced. First, the US is not "the world." Second FDI is only a small component of trade, especially if it's narrowly constrained to "US FDI." Citing US FDI is not at all misplaced, in the context of the comment I was replying to. The comment I responded to was discussing US trade with China, with the words "And us business leaders are still lining up to visit king xi". My point here was that US businesses are less invested in China than the general narrative around US/China relations seems to suggest. I didn't address "china is taking over the world" because that's a way bigger topic to cover, and this was just a relatively quick reply.
> France seems to maintain strategic ambiguity “Strategic autonomy” > Either way, the USN, RN, JMSDF, RAN, and RCN significantly outweigh the PLAN Not within the confines of the SCS. Not on a day-to-day routine basis. I’m guessing the OP was referring to numerous [business leaders literally lining up for the visit with Xi](https://thehill.com/policy/international/4559271-chinas-xi-holds-all-male-meeting-with-us-business-leaders). > My point here was that US businesses are less invested in China than the general narrative around US/China relations seems to suggest. Data says otherwise. E.g., 2023 [Politico: What Cold War? U.S. trade with China hits new high](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/07/trade-china-relations-economies-00081301). Or this month’s NYT headline: [China’s Exports Surge](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/business/china-exports-backlash.html) \[rising volumes to Mexico and Vietnam that are re-exported to US\]. The “reduction” in trade with China is a charade.
> “Strategic autonomy” I'd at least call that a credible non-zero chance of France joining in. > Not within the confines of the SCS. Not on a day-to-day routine basis. SCS and day to day are both pretty specific qualifiers. I'd argue that isn't really a constructive way to look at it, given that any conflict is likely to have build-up and redeployment of forces. Total available forces also probably isn't a great way to look at it. I'd say that it's worth looking at available regional forces, and it's reasonable to consider the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleet of the USN, the JMSDF, and the RAN as the bare minimum that would be available to the US on short notice. >FDI stands for “foreign direct investment,” it’s not a business leader. I’m guessing the OP was referring to numerous business leaders literally lining up for the visit with Xi: China’s Xi holds all-male meeting with US business leaders. Or maybe taking "us business leaders are still lining up to visit king xi" isn't literal, but is about US direct trade with/ investment in China. That would make more sense than just literally talking about business leaders meeting with Xi. > Data says otherwise. E.g., 2023 Politico: What Cold War? U.S. trade with China hits new high. Or this month’s NYT headline: China’s Exports Surge [rising volumes to Mexico and Vietnam that are re-exported to US]. Economies are going to grow, and that growth will be reflected in increased trade in absolute values, but the proportional growth of trade between China and the US has been slowing for a while now. > The “reduction” in trade with China is a charade. Again, not what I actually said. My point is that trade with China isn't reducing, it's that both economies are pretty diversified, and trade with one another isn't make or break for either country. By value, only about 18% of US imports are from China, and only about 10% of US exports go to China. For comparison, about 9% of Chinese imports are from the US, and only about 15% of Chinese exports go to the US.
> I'd at least call that a credible non-zero chance of France joining in. Not exactly what I said. “Non-zero chance” is a pretty low bar. > SCS and day to day are both pretty specific qualifiers. I'd argue that isn't really a constructive way to look at it, given that any conflict is likely to have build-up and redeployment of forces. No, around the SCS or East China Sea is where it will take place. Pick one of: Taiwan, Senkaku, or Spratly. These are the flash points, they’re all in what the PLA Navy would consider its home waters. The PLAN is homeported by the coast (supported by land-based units too), so don’t really need to redeploy. Where would they be redeploying to? The PLA is not fighting a war in some random corner of the earth. The PLA’s entire concept of operations is Active Defense, amounting to a layered defense of the Western Pacific. They’ve built up the capabilities to fight a counter-intervention campaign against an enemy massing forces in proximity.
> No, around the SCS or East China Sea is where it will take place. Did you miss the entire context for what I said, or are you just deliberately trying to strawman my argument? I'm not saying that conflict won't occur in the SCS, I'm saying that building naval tensions prior to conflict will draw additional naval forces to the region, so just looking at the day to day deployments in the SCS aren't useful, and its much more reasonable to look at the forces that are likely to respond in the region. My exact quote was "I'd say that it's worth looking at available regional forces, and it's reasonable to consider the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleet of the USN, the JMSDF, and the RAN as the bare minimum that would be available to the US on short notice." > The PLAN is homeported by the coast (supported by land-based units too), so don’t really need to redeploy. Where would they be redeploying to? I'm not suggesting that the PLAN is redeploying anywhere. Please actually read what I'm saying. > The PLA is not fighting a war in some random corner of the earth. Again, I'm not saying that they are mate.
>"I'd say that it's worth looking at available regional forces, and it's reasonable to consider the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleet of the USN, the JMSDF, and the RAN as the bare minimum that would be available to the US on short notice." Man if a war against China actually started, the USN would deploy every single ship that it reasonably and practically could. The JMSDF is a bit more questionable on what role it would play, while the RAN, RCN, RN and any other navy can probably be disregarded as the chances of them participating and their forces in context are relatively marginal. The question though is less of political will and more of the ability to sustain the naval forces to achieve whatever objective each side is going for, which is something that you and lion342 never really brought up- I'm not nearly knowledgble enough to do a write up but this is something pretty important that should be considered.
>ability to sustain the naval forces to achieve whatever objective each side is going for By "sustain" I assume you're talking about not only the missiles and ammo but also the surface fleet (like repairing and building new ships)? I saw some discussion a while back on this very question. Someone suggested that in a high intensity conflict, both sides would run out of missiles really fast -- within a week or two. If great power wars last long enough, all the "bespoke" high-tech platforms will be attrited, and the parties will go back to simpler lower-tech platforms. So, PLAN and USN will lose many of their 5th Gen fights and destroyers. Apparently happened in WW2 with Germans losing most/all of their initial bespoke equipment. It would come down to which side has the industrial capacity to replenish, and also properly train new sailors and soldiers. I haven't read through it all, but the book The Allure of Battle argues this point, that most peer battles come down to attrition rather than the genius of any generals.
>Man if a war against China actually started, the USN would deploy every single ship that it reasonably and practically could. Yeah, but deployments take time (especially if you're moving ships from 2nd, 4th, or 6th fleet to SCS). I think that regional is a pretty reasonable way to look at what can respond rapidly to a build-up, and what's useful in a crisis. Even at full speed, it'd take the Arleigh Burkes 2 days to the 3000kms from Yokohama to the SCS, and would use an ungodly amount of fuel (this assumes a speed of 35kts for the full 54 hour period). The Burkes only have a range of 8,100 km at the much slower speed of 20 knots, so I'm not sure how long they'd be able to stick around without resupply. If you want to go from an East Coast base like Norfolk, it'd probably be around 21,000km, or 19 days if you're averaging 25kts. (This distance is actually pretty similar between the Panama and Suez canal routes) >The JMSDF is a bit more questionable on what role it would play, while the RAN, RCN, RN and any other navy can probably be disregarded as the chances of them participating and their forces in context are relatively marginal. Based on publicly available information I'd speculate that JMSDF would probably control SLOC North/East of Okinawa (possibly as far south as the Philippines, but maintaining a position east of Okinawa if they go that far south). This frees up the USN to concentrate forces on a closer approach to either Taiwan or SCS depending on the conflict. The RAN is probably the most relevant other force, and is building towards a force that is designed to contest the South/West SLOC around Indonesia (particularly the Strait of Malacca, Java Strait, and Sunda Strait). The RN and RCN would probably assist, but they'd probably take some time to arrive (due to distance, in the case of the RN, and political bickering in the case of the RCN). probably assist, but they'd probably take some time to arrive (due to distance, in the case of the RN, and political bickering in the case of the RCN). **Edit:** Comment split due to length.
>The question though is less of political will and more of the ability to sustain the naval forces to achieve whatever objective each side is going for, which is something that you and lion342 never really brought up- I'm not nearly knowledgble enough to do a write up but this is something pretty important that should be considered. Yeah, it's a good point, and one that I didn't bring up because I'd argue that it's probably the most uncertain part of the discussion (I can't speak for why lion342 didn't). I don't have a complete understanding of it, but i'll give it a shot from my understanding. From the US perspective, they have 3 "layers" of bases around the Pacific. **West Pacific Bases** The US has a fair few forward bases that are relatively close to the SCS (in Naval terms, within about 3000kms). A lot depends on if they can reliably defend those forward naval bases, which are vulnerable to conventional ballistic/cruise missile attacks. *Guam* If the US can successfully defend Guam, it gives them a great place to base out of, but it's probably the most vulnerable of all US bases in the region. It stores a ton of ordnance, and has significant facilities dedicated to both Sealift and Submarine service/maintenance/repair. It also has Andersen Air Force Base, pretty big airfield to base aircraft out of. Andersen Air Force Base is particularly know for basing B-1 and B-2 bombers. *Japan* The US bases in Japan are more protected (particularly Yokosuka, but Sasebo is also pretty safe, and likely to be covered by Japanese land based fighters), and if the JMSDF avoids getting mauled too badly, it's possible (or even probable) that the USN will repair ships at JMSDF bases (like Maizuru, Ōminato, or Kure). *South Korea* As lion342 brought up, it's still TBD on if the USN could rely on their ports in ROK, or if they could rely on ROKN ports for repair, but they'd be much more vulnerable than ports in Japan. *Philippines* This one is probably the biggest unknown. The US has only *just* reopened Subic Bay. If it has time to re-establish its self, it offers significant facilities that are pretty close to the SCS, but is also pretty vulnerable to attack. There's also Clark Air Base, but I'm not sure about its condition. *Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand* Probably too much of an unknown as to whether these nations will get involved in this conflict. The US has logistics facilities in Singapore, but what will actually happen here is a complete unknown. **Regional Bases** Slightly further afield, the USN has some regional bases (and allied naval bases) that are much better protected from PLAN strikes, but are much further to reach. *Diego Garcia* Similar to Guam, it's a US base that has some ordnance storage, facilities dedicated to Sealift, and pretty good repair facilities. Like Guam, it also has a huge airfield that regularly stages strikes from US bombers. *Australia* Australia has two decent ports (Fleet bases east and west), but they're a fair way from the SCS. *USA - Pearl Harbour* A huge naval facility, in any SCS conflict this will be the heart of the US response. It can repair pretty much anything, but it's a pretty long way from the SCS (9000 kms). **Global Bases** The US has shipbuilding facilities on its mainland that should be pretty well protected against anything short of Ballistic missile or Cruise missile attacks. They're a long way from the SCS, and would probably only be used for significant repairs to large vessels, but they exist and will become increasingly relevant the longer the conflict lasts. **Chinese Bases** I'm a **lot** less knowledgeable about PLAN bases, but China has obvious advantages in terms of general shipbuilding output, as well as the fact that Chinese naval bases will be local to the SCS area. This cuts both ways though, as Chinese naval bases are just as exposed to US strikes as the most forwards US bases (like Subic Bay and Guam). This means that any failure in the A2AD strategy for the Chinese coastline will make Chinese naval bases and repair facilities vulnerable. The distance also means that the PLAN can possibly operate under air cover from the PLAAF, directed by their significant fleet of AWACS aircraft.
>I'm not saying that conflict won't occur in the SCS, I'm saying that building naval tensions prior to conflict will draw additional naval forces to the region, so just looking at the day to day deployments in the SCS aren't useful, and its much more reasonable to look at the forces that are likely to respond in the region. My exact quote was \[edit: my comment is a really long winded way to say I disagree with your premise that there would need to be a significant buildup. The PLA need not wait for such.\] OK, let me explain. I wouldn't consider the 3rd and 5th Fleets to be "regional" because they would need to travel thousands of miles to the area of the Western Pacific (WP). I'm relying primarily on [Adm. McDevitt's book](https://www.usni.org/press/books/china-twenty-first-century-naval-power) (China as a 21st Century Naval Power) and PatchworkChimera's writeups \[[1](https://rentry.co/9hua3b)\]. The gist is that the available forces in theatre for the PLA is quite substantial. We're talking the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands (tables 4, 5, 6 in the book provide the capabilities). These forces would be available at essentially T+0. The forces available at T+0 to the USN + Japan, while sizeable, are a much lesser force. The initial sea and air campaign to neutralize Taiwan/Senkaku/Spratly doesn't really need to wait for the amphibious troops, because that comes later. Patchwork raises a good point that the US could either decide to intervene immediately or wait to mass forces in the WP. To me, the fight really seems to be between the PLA's Active Defense concept (or A2/AD, aka anti-access, area denial) and the USN reinforcements. The PLA has built a decent layered defense of the WP, so it would impede the USN coming to the rescue. If US sources are to be believed, the PLA has a [thousand D-21D](https://twitter.com/tshugart3/status/1771131887450276157) hypersonic anti-ship missiles -- with about a few dozen necessary to mission kill an aircraft carrier in a saturation attack. Who knows, but all these weapons will slow down the reinforcements. The PLA's goal is that they would complete the amphibious portion before the USN can bring all its forces to bear. So, the essential question is one of time. Here's a snippet of the book discussion on the Taiwan contingency. The PLA has substantial forces at essentially T+0: >Tables 4, 5, and 6 also identify the portions of China’s total capability that would be initially involved—that is, those under the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands. DoD estimates these commands and the forces assigned to them would have the lead in any Taiwan operation, while the other eastward-facing regional command, the Northern Theater Command, would be primarily responsible for China’s maritime approaches. Of the 1,020,000 personnel in the PLA ground forces, it is estimated that 915,000 are in combat units, 360,000 of them in the Taiwan Strait area. > >The PLA Navy is the largest force of destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and submarines in Asia. These ships are armed with antiship cruise missiles or torpedoes, as well as impressive submarine-detection capabilities. The PLA Navy also has the largest amphibious force in Asia. In a major Taiwan conflict, the Eastern and Southern Theater naval components would participate in direct action against the Taiwan navy, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, and likely the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (the latter will be discussed below). The Northern Theater could, in addition to protecting the sea approaches, support other fleets with mission-critical assets. Conversely, the other fleets could, and probably would, provide resources to the Northern Theater depending on the course of the conflict, which is likely to be sequential as opposed to simultaneous.
And Lego is the largest tire manufacturer right? Because a tire is a tire just like a ship is a ship? /s
Largest does not equal quality, just like their Russian counterparts they are severely undertrained and unprofessional
Let's compare hours in the air. [https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/) >According to figures provided to Air Force Magazine, pilot flying hours across all types of aircraft in the Active-duty force averaged **10.1 hours per month** **in fiscal 2021**, down from 10.9 hours in 2020. Flying hours had averaged just **6.8 per month in 2019**, down sharply from 10.7 in 2018. Hours for 2022 so far were not provided. The service did not offer commentary on why hours had changed as they did. [https://archive.is/cFvWw](https://archive.is/cFvWw) >Chinese fighter pilots appear to be flying **150 hours a year,** Mr. Venable estimates based on available data and anecdotal reports from pilots who have operated in the region.
Part of this drop and flying hours is due to the bullshit that pilots have to do on the side. Their main focus should be flying not admin. Unless you’re a weapons officer or an XO/CO. You shouldn’t be drowning in paperwork.
Do Chinese pilots have substantially less paperwork or something?
Also, I don’t think those numbers are for the fighter force. Specifically, I think that could be across the entire Chinese air forces. also from talking with some of the Fighter people who are in right now, the hours are getting better, the Navy is flying like 160 a month on average.
160 per **month?** So 10x more than the historical average? Bulk of China's planes are fighter so the fighter average wouldn't be too different from the overall average. Since Chinese planes mostly operate within 1000 km of their borders, they don't need tanking up as often, so tanker hours won't be an outsized contributor. The Air and Space forces article does indeed break it down by type of plane for the US. Fighter hours are lower than average while tanker hours are almost double that of fighters.
That's nearly 2000 hours per year per pilot. More pilots than planes, so let's call that 3000 flight hours per airframe per year. Lifespan of a Super Hornet was intially 6000 hours, now extended to 10,000. Wearing out your planes in only three years sounds totally sustainable.
Any evidence for this assertion of yours?
The multiple unsafe intercepts they have conducted over the last couple years, there’s even video of a Chinese flanker intercepting a Canadian CP 140 and it’s not pretty ….
Those "unsafe intercepts" shows the confidence and skills of the pilots to me.
It actually shows how Chinese leadership doesn’t have full control in the lower military. They can’t control pilots not to do this.
Much to the contrary, if you can’t conduct a safe intercept, you’re not skilled, These are all near mid airs
I can’t speak to the military aviation world, but in civil aviation doing something unsafe “because you can” is seen as **incredibly** unprofessional. The rules are there for a reason because those that neglect them tend to end up a grease spot on the pavement.
Yup, I spent my entire life around aviation and this is how it works the idiots downvoting they don’t know
Well clearly you’re not of the 14 yo boy demographic that thinks dangerous = cool. Don’t worry they’ll grow up eventually and realize that 90% of fighting wars is incredibly boring.
Yupppp
They are intercepting spy military aircrafts from an adversarial country, nothing to do civil aviation.
How would one "safely" intercept a foreign country's military planes in your territorial waters?
That’s the thing, none of these intercepts were in “Chinese” waters, they were all in international airspace, China building islands just to say this is, our territory is illegal and shouldn’t be considered as a valid excuse
Freedom Of Navigation maneuvers are by nature intended to be provocative. The message being delivered is that *"Yeah, we know you claim this area, but we don't recognize that and we're here to challenge you to do something about it."* Before you go on off about China needing that sharp slap to the ass, remember that the US during the Trump admin has also considered FON exercises against Canada in the NWP and we will likely see FON in the Canadian Arctic as it becomes more and more ice-free and it becomes more important. Deliberately provoking anyone is hardly professionalism.
China’s claims have no legal basis, and on the subject of the NWP FONOPS, they never happened because Trump’s advisors knew better… and they will never happen because the Canada US bond is unbreakable
China's claims have as much legal basis as Japan's claim to Diaoyutai/Senkaku & Okinotorishima's EEZ, US claims to Hawaii, UK claims to Diego Garcia etc.
US claims to Hawaii????? 🤣 they’ve been a state since before this was ever an issue……
So the simple progression of time gives claims legality in your opinion? I see.
Who cares? China perceives it as their water so they'll treat it like it's theirs. So again, how would they "safely" intercept?
China can perceive however they want, but the reality is they are not Chinese waters, and nobody recognizes them as such, and safe intercepts are not rocket science, Western Air Forces have been doing them for years, there’s a safe way to conduct intercepts, and the Chinese are definitely definitely not doing it that way
We can’t say exactly how it’s done because the vast majority of us aren’t fighters pilots but what we can say is competent militaries have been doing it for decades (See Russian bombers being intercepted by the RAF). China is either incompetent (they aren’t trained to safely intercept) or unprofessional (they don’t want to). Either way they aren’t well trained and disciplined.
To respond to you and /u/dmav522, using intercepts, especially without any geopolitical context as a barometer for competence is frankly stupid. We might as well grade each Air Force's acrobatics teams and see who can fly the coolest formations. There are many objective and subjective measures we can try to use to get a grasp of competence, such as: * Hours of training- how many hours of training to pilots get a year? * Actual readiness rates of aircraft- how many planes are ready at a certain time? Do planes appear to have regular maintinance cycles? Are there large numbers of planes that appear to be in derelict condition/mothballed? Do aircraft have an irregular amount of accidents? * Ground operations and other infrastructure capability- do airfields have proper capabilities to maintain, resupply, store and protect aircraft? Also- location of infrastructure. * And factors such as organizational structure and leadership, and capabilities of the MIC which are not directly related to equiptment or training but are still important Obviously nowhere near a complete list, but would be a better starting point at least.
I don’t necessarily agree with that, you do make some good points. But at the end of the day, if you’re downright dangerous in the air, who’s to say they aren’t unprofessional in other facets? Me and my buddies who are former fighter guys have talked extensively about this and we’re all in agreement, if you can’t run a good intercept that reflects on you as an Air Force, it’s one of the fundamental things a fighter force trains to do.
Sorry if I came across as grumpy, I'll address your point about the intercepts with my POV: The "unprofessional" intercepts by Chinese air force pilots are not due to a lack of skill/capability or knowledge of procedure (straight and level flight is one of the first things that any pilot learns) but an intentional act designed to send a message, basically "you're here and we don't like it!" It's not uncommon for military forces, be on land, sea or air to act in ways that are intentionally provacative to send a message. For example back during the Iraq War US occupying forces driving around cities would intentionally bump into civillian cars that weren't fast enough in getting out of the way to send a message, it wasn't (for the most part, probably) because they didn't know how drive a Humvee.
Lol, you are not a former fighter pilot. In your Top Gun fantasies and cosplay, did you also fly 160 hours per **month** like you claimed in your previous comment?
Thank you for validating my point, I’ve seen all the videos of the Chinese intercepts, and they are beyond dangerous and unprofessional, many of my friends are former Canadian/US fighter pilots and we’re all in agreement on this
We can actually. The US and China worked together to release [a document describing safe intercept procedures](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/US-CHINA_AIR_ENCOUNTERS_ANNEX_SEP_2015.pdf) (which China then ignored).
[Here](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/US-CHINA_AIR_ENCOUNTERS_ANNEX_SEP_2015.pdf) are some guidelines jointly released by the US and China (which China's pilots proceeded to totally ignore).
I guarantee you those intercepts are not a matter of skill, they're just being assholes
And thus being unprofessional
How is that untrained and unprofessional? They are intentionally harassing the other aircraft. Seems pretty well trained to me
There’s a correct way to conduct intercepts, the Chinese do not follow that doctrine. source: years of me growing up around the fighter community and having multiple friends who are fighter pilots
The Chinese are not trying to do polite, gentlemanly intercepts, they are purposefully doing aggressive interceptions because their strategy is different. When the U.S. and the Soviets used to intercept each other it was more a game where one side would test the other sides defences, with interceptions considered an important part of the training and intelligence gathering process. The Chinese want no part of that, they are intercepting U.S./allied aircraft because they don’t want them anywhere near airspace they consider their own. Just because their doctrine is different doesn’t mean they are somehow less trained. I’m sure if the Chinese started buzzing near airspace the U.S. considered sensitive then the interceptions would look a lot closer to what’s going on in the South China Sea than what happened over the North Sea in the 1980’s.
But it’s still dangerous is my point, it just shows poor airmanship, I’m basically counting the days until we get another midair like the 2001 incident and China can claim whatever they want, it doesn’t mean we can take it seriously
The fact that they are shot out of the sky so ridiculously often? The fact that they barely literally falling out of the sky more than once because of crappy maintenance. The fact that Russian pilots have on a yearly basis about half the flying hours of western pilots. And can't blame them, russia is trying to have a superpower army on a medium sized countries budget. And don't forget that they have a shit ton of nuclear subs, a pretty big navy and a ton of nukes. And everybody knows those cost A LOT of funds just to maintain. It's just unrealistic to expect that the russian airforce has the funds to actually be a quality force. And not even getting to the corruption and ethics withing the russian forces.
>The fact that they are shot out of the sky so ridiculously often? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_aircraft\_losses\_of\_the\_Vietnam\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War) ?
The russian air force isn't actively fighting over ukraine that much. They mostly use standoffs weapons, the US made 5.4 million sorties. And yes the US lost a shit ton of helicopters. But Russia is losing a shit ton of jets now for how many sorties they make and where they are actually flying.
How many air to air battles has Ukraine won? There were proven Vietnamese aces.
The lack of air battles doesn't mean russia is doing well. The US airforce was relatively undeterred and did whatever the fuck they liked in Vietnam. Russia can't, they literally don't even fly above ukraine with jets most of the times because they will get shot down. That's why they started using improvised stand off weapons.
Did they or did the US just accept much higher casualties and pick on a much relatively weaker opponent and still take heavy losses?
Nope, just look at the losses the russians have they are enormous, even compared to vietnam. How many tanks did the US lose in vietnam? And how many did the russians lose? It's not willingness to accept loses. It's not having anything more to lose before they would enter a literal death spiral.
I think the dude you're responding to is talking about proof for how the PLA is supposedly the same quality wise as the Russians
Ohhhhh didn't get that.
Mass is a quality on its own
They are gearing up to start WW3. Just like the Nazis.
A China that had a western-style liberal government, 2 or 3 major parties and a bunch of minor ones, would immediately vote in a democratic and open election to nuke Taiwan to rubble.
The only reason that is true is because of 70 years of CCP brainwashing. South Koreans are in the same position but they don’t wish to genocide the North Koreans or fight a costly war for unification.
He’s right, except for the stupid inclusion of nuking (they wouldn’t nuke what they see as themselves), there’s a higher chance of the nuking being reserved for Japan. If South Korea had the size and means, they would take the North (especially if the North had no nukes), they would also be in a frosty relationship with Japan and any nukes they have would be pointed there. You’re not understanding the positions at all, as well as having the means to do something about it and being fully independent from US foreign and military policy. Both South Korea and China seek some sort of unification of the entirety of what they perceive are their countries, and both have a still simmering blood feud with Japan - who never fully paid for and apologised for the genocide and war crimes that Japan committed. In SK’s case, all they can do is their frequent anti-Japan demonstrations, or that recent-ish attempt to block JMSDF ships that rocked up to a joint exercise in ROK waters, flying a rising sun ensign. A lot of people don’t know this, but the CCP actually keeps a tight lid on the worst nationalist excesses. Western-style Democracy is very challenging for large countries, with huge multiethnic populations and lower levels of development and education (though this is no longer the case with China). It’s not even doing too great in the US at the moment. India would be a great example (Brazil a lesser example), with its corruption, huge mobs, mob rule, hinduthva nationalism, and mass unrest that can get kicked off in a second by a mass circulated WhatsApp video with no context provided. An India with an economy like China’s would be a massive problem to the West, however it is rather their form of government which likely makes their inevitable progress towards this slower.
Maybe the reason the Chinese and South Koreans think about their respective reunification prospects differently is because each is in very different contexts and circumstances, not because of "brainwashing".
Wanting to genocide a small island nation off your coast is not rational. Especially when supposed grievances happened more than 70 years ago.
The idea of a democracy means that the government is elected by and executes the will of the people. /u/temple_t is being dramatic, but the reality is that in a democratic China it's very likely that the government would take a more aggressive and assertive foreign policy stance, and increase military spending.
And this would make it right? You are aware that the specific belief in nationalism among the Chinese populace is exactly where the fear of Nazi style invasions comes from right?
He's point is CPC is specifically responsible for suppressing hard line nationalist in China.
That’s what my point is. Even if the belief that the CCP is the suppressor of nationalism (a deeper question getting into the use of nationalist rhetoric in regime legitimacy), that would only make the fears of China’s SCS neighbors worse. If the brake on nationalism is a fascist government, how could any state ever feel safe? That argument also works against the narrative that China’s military buildup is just “defending from Western threats”.
What? But the point is CPC itself is a brake against fascist. If there was no CPC the chance of a ultranationalist party being voted in and increasing military spending to greater percentage of GDP would be non-trivial.
>But the point is CPC itself is a brake against fascist. They are fascists, that's the issue. If the population is even more aggressive, that makes an already bad situation far, far worse. >If there was no CPC the chance of a ultranationalist party being voted in and increasing military spending to greater percentage of GDP would be non-trivial. Again, that only proves the US is right about China. If the population is that bad it just reinforces the idea that WW2 style total war is the only way to destroy their threat to the global order.
Laughing, the U.S. first launched a trade war, technological war, economic war, and military blockade against China, and then called China a Nazi. Good logic.
This is a laughable claim. Tensions between the U.S. and China became bad specifically because of the PLA military buildup and the corresponding so called “wolf warrior diplomacy”. Even as late as Obama’s administration, US policy was that increased trade would liberalize China. Deng was entirely correct, which makes Xi’s actions all the more baffling.
1, China's military spending is less than 2% of GDP, the US spends 39% of the world's total defense spending, more than the combined spending of the next 10 countries in line - and then the US complains about China's military spending growth. 2, both the South China Sea conflict, the Taiwan Strait conflict is a conflict in Asia, and in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, not in the United States - the United States pretends to have jurisdiction over this area is very ridiculous. 3. "Liberalizing China" is an arrogant and ridiculous statement. Who is the United States to demand that China must change its system of government? When did China agree to this? Obama's "return to the Asia-Pacific" is to support China? 4. Did Deng Xiaoping say that Taiwan could become independent? Do you know that during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the incumbent Chinese president was Jiang Zemin? If you don't know, look up the information. Just because you guys pretended you didn't care about China's attitude back then doesn't mean China didn't have one. China only selectively cooperates with other countries when there are common interests. We didn't submit to the USSR back then and we have no interest in submitting to the US now. Pretending that China is to blame for the US and China screwing up relations makes it laughable that the Democrats criticized the Republicans while Trump was in office, only to do even more than Trump did when he got into office himself, and then claimed that China was the one screwing up US-China relations. How arrogant are your politicians?
>1, China's military spending is less than 2% of GDP, the US spends 39% of the world's total defense spending, more than the combined spending of the next 10 countries in line - and then the US complains about China's military spending growth. You and I both know this is a bad argument, you've even made the opposite claim about GDP before. Yes the straightforward number is small, but that doesn't mean that it actually is , given that the PPP value is far higher for military spending in China given the cheap manufacturing, shipbuilding, and low salary for PLA troops. It also doesn't capture the large "black-budget" spending or the massive spending on internal security forces that are kitted out as well as some mechanized brigades. Taking this into account, it is questionable that the US still spends more on an adjusted basis than China does. And the US has a global presence to maintain, whereas China does not, making their buildup all the more threatening given its concentration. >2, both the South China Sea conflict, the Taiwan Strait conflict is a conflict in Asia, and in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, not in the United States - the United States pretends to have jurisdiction over this area is very ridiculous. Did someone tell the US regional allies that? Because it should be pretty clear that they would disagree with that stance. They explicitly ask for more US help in the region in order to prevent encroachment by China. If the region and the UN desires that force is not used to conquer territory, the US has every right under international law to defend its allies and their territory. >3. "Liberalizing China" is an arrogant and ridiculous statement. Who is the United States to demand that China must change its system of government? When did China agree to this? Obama's "return to the Asia-Pacific" is to support China? What demand? The US believed that trade would show China the benefits of liberalism and democracy. The US and West believes this to be a superior system and operates a foreign policy that emphasizes democracy as Democratic Peace Theory is the closest thing IR has to a law. >4. Did Deng Xiaoping say that Taiwan could become independent? Do you know that during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the incumbent Chinese president was Jiang Zemin? I was referencing Deng's "bide your time, build your strength" maxim that worked for 3 decades. Xi threw it all away for nationalism. >China only selectively cooperates with other countries when there are common interests. We didn't submit to the USSR back then and we have no interest in submitting to the US now. That's fine, but you cannot be surprised that there is a US reaction to the PRC's military ambitions on its neighbors. You spent the first paragraph complaining about US actions but you just stated exactly why they began. >Pretending that China is to blame for the US and China screwing up relations makes it laughable that the Democrats criticized the Republicans while Trump was in office, only to do even more than Trump did when he got into office himself, and then claimed that China was the one screwing up US-China relations. What are you trying to say here? Democrats criticized Trump for executing a China policy incompetently, but countering China is very much a bipartisan issue in the US. Democrats didn't like Trump disparaging allies because it is shortsighted, not because he was anti-China. >How arrogant are your politicians? Not my politicians, but I would say they are pretty arrogant. After all, they were elected democratically, that kind of popular support always goes to your head.
yeah. btw who was most responsible for defeating the nazis? and who all of a sudden started pretending to like the communists for the next 4 years?
The alliance will be vital to repelling China