China can and will achieve total air superiority over Taiwan

zraver said:

China's best bet is to simply continue the economic merger, domestic liberalisation and take a long view. The economics have brought the two Chinas closer than any threats by the generals. China's arms race however may undue this progress by making paranoid neighbors inluding the RoC.

best bet would be remove the missiles, stop the arms buying and redirect that capitol into the economy (although the idiot hawks running the PLA would dissagree). The two Chinas will merge when both of them decide that is the most profitable way to go.

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your probably right that the PLA will have a hell of a time taking over the island, but the lesson that should be learned from it is that PLA is too weak and need more money instead of just give up and wave a white flag to the Americans. For country that's as big and influntial as China, its military is pretty weak. China should have the least the capability that Britain or France has. if any thing, China should build more advance weapons and pour more money into the military (but too much that it will affect the economy adversely).

The US also almost always keeps a ship in port at Taipei (ussally aegis equipped) China can either attack it and enrage the American public with dead American sailors or ignore it as it empties it's bins killing PRC missiles and provides critical C4I assistence to RoC forces.

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No. The stationing of a foreign military asset in Taiwan is one of the four grounds the PRC will go to war. That is why you don't station USAF F-15s over there, or US Marines over in Taiwan. This is one of the terms for diplomatic treaty with the PRC.

FuManChu said:

No, I said I'd heard the figure bandied about and that I wasn't sure of the reliability.



Well, long-term was maybe the wrong term. Perhaps "medium term" is more correct - though supposedly production will start in the near future.

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We'll see but I don't consider it to be a very efficient use of resources. You can regard this as a political maneuver rather than a cost effective weapon. But of course the CCP leadership is going to see through that and won't be impressed. Hitting civilian targets with the cruise missiles will only enrage the mainland population more and they would feel more justified in attacking Taiwan. This is like the Hitlerite fascination for V weapons to attack Britain while losing the war in the main fronts. Or like the Hitlerite idea of turning Me-262s into bombers while they are desperately needed as fighters.

This would be a diversion that won't have any impact on the war but only divert resources from areas that would have needed it more. HF-2E and TK-2proposed SSM are both a freaking waste of money. Why not just make more TC-2 and TC-2A missiles? Buy more AMRAAM. Deploy more TK-2 SAMs. Finish the HF-3 supersonic AshM and deploy them.

Crobato, a naval ship visiting a port of call isn't based there, but all the same ther eis a US warship at Taipei almost 24/7. To attack Taiwan you have to risk killing Americans.

Kumingren, an arms race is a bad idea, China a has 4 unstable nuclear powers on it's borders and 2 super rich Asian countries that can easily keep pace and have high tech manufacturing.

China already spends more on defence than anyone but the US.

With Taiwan take the famous Asian long view, build the economic and cultural ties and the rest will take care of itself.

zraver said:

Kumingren, an arms race is a bad idea, China a has 4 unstable nuclear powers on it's borders and 2 super rich Asian countries that can easily keep pace and have high tech manufacturing.

China already spends more on defence than anyone but the US.

With Taiwan take the famous Asian long view, build the economic and cultural ties and the rest will take care of itself.

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i agree that arms race is a bad i idea, but neglecting ur military is also very bad. China is the second largest economy in terms of PPP, shouldnt it also be the second largest military spender? China is merely trying to make up for its past neglect of military development during the Mao era and get the PLA where it should be.

As for the 600 or 700 ballistic missile, i they are more of a terror weapon to scarce people, their acutal tactical value are limited. conventional ballistic missile are inaccurate (compare to the guided munition that can be droped of su-30) and not cost effcient(A H-6 carries more fire power in terms of free falling bombs).
thats why most countries that deploys them are those third world nations like syria or Iraq, which it fires at civilian areas because it is the only way to garantee that the missile will hit something.

in end, PLA will need to rely on its aircrafts and cruise missile to fight ROC

The problem is China is building power projection capabilities and those are not defensive and will require your neighbors to respond. The more China spends the more your neighbors spend, the more your neighbors spend the more you have to divert forces away from the RoC actually weakening your presence there.

China has 0 chance of beating the US and taking Taiwan. No matte rhow much damage you you might do to a CBG, our subs and bombers will make sure you cannot invade Taiwan

zraver said:

The problem is China is building power projection capabilities and those are not defensive and will require your neighbors to respond. The more China spends the more your neighbors spend, the more your neighbors spend the more you have to divert forces away from the RoC actually weakening your presence there.

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China Prominent pro-US neighbour are already spending more on defense than China... and why does spending more would divert china's forces away from ROC ? Only massing troops at china's border would....

China has 0 chance of beating the US and taking Taiwan. No matte rhow much damage you you might do to a CBG, our subs and bombers will make sure you cannot invade Taiwan

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Arrogance and Complacency are the mother of all fatal failures.

zraver said:

The problem is China is building power projection capabilities and those are not defensive and will require your neighbors to respond. The more China spends the more your neighbors spend, the more your neighbors spend the more you have to divert forces away from the RoC actually weakening your presence there.

China has 0 chance of beating the US and taking Taiwan. No matte rhow much damage you you might do to a CBG, our subs and bombers will make sure you cannot invade Taiwan

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Well, America is definitely building a capability beyond a pure defensive nature, and since u r probably an american, you are very proud of that and dont see any problem with that. you just assume that America will be responsible with that power. The same thing goes for a chinese person, we want our military to be strong and unbeatable witht he premise that we are the good guys and we will be the responsible one. what i am trying to say is that part of ur premise is a little biased in favor of the US.

As for china not being able to defeat the US, i will agree that the PLAN and has a astronomically small chance of defeating the US fleet, but miracles do happens some time, so you really shouldnt be too cocky . This statement in itself is reason why China should arm itself. From ur point of view, this is perfectly normal that US will defeat China in a war, so there is no reason why China should even bother trying to put up a fight. But for a chinese guy to look at this, he wouldnt reach the same conclusion you did, he will see this and think 'wtf is happening, why arent we spending more on our army and navy so i will feel more protected against America.'

your line of thinking is the same one that got US stuck i Iraq, american just assumed that everyone loves freedom and democracy, so they must also love that fact that we liberated them. Now you assumiing that since America is too strong to be beat, the Chinese should just give up trying and go do something else.

Ok this thing is drifting in very dangerous waters...

No more this "usa beats the crap out of everyone" BS and the unavoidable "who do you think you are.." counter BS...

Taiwan issue should be enough flamable without any additional substances..

thank you
Golly, supermod
ff ff

golly,

Not trying to have a US vs everyone flame fest. Simply tryoing to illustrate a point that agressive military spending by China is destablizing to thje region, and will only force a second cold war. China can get what it wants far cheaper using the economic path. Military threats have achieved nothing with Taiwan. Economic and cultural exchanges have achieved amazing sucesses in a very short amount of time.

modydog,

As long as the US keeps spending the money it's not complacency. If we were complacent we would not be buying F-22's and F-35's.

kunmingren,

pointing hundreds of missiles at Taiwan, selling Pakistan nucelar missile technology, and propping up the nutjob Kim in North Korea is not defending agaisnt America.