China's strategy in Korean peninsula

plawolf said:

That is highly unrealistic.

Any US attack on NK nukes will the same as if the US started attacking Chinese or Russian nukes, or vice Verda, and present Fatty K with the classic 'use them or loose them' dilemma.

There is absolutely no way anyone could convince Fatty K that after the US has destroyed all his nukes that the next step won't be regime change or an US nuclear first strike.

As such, he will most likely nuke Seoul and every other major target his nukes can reach out of some desperate hope that such a move would force the US to reconsider or just out of sheer spite.

Even if Fatty K holds back or cannot launch any nukes, NK 'rocketing' SK in response to such an attack won't just be a few random shots for show, but a full sustain barrage from tens of thousands of heavy artillery and rockets aimed at Seoul.

Most of those artillery pieces and well dug into mountains, and it won't be quick or easy to silence them with air strikes alone.

Indeed, the only way to totally silence them will probably require boost on the ground to dig them out. And the pressure to act will be irresistible for SK with millions of civilians trapped under bombardment in its capital.

Once SK and the US gets sucked into a ground war, it will be virtually impossible for them to pull out half way, because Fatty K will do all he can to force them to advance ever northward since his only hope in such a situation would be to force China to come in against the US and SK forces.

Basically, as soon as the US targets any NK nukes, the domino effect to the re-start of the Korean War will be near impossible.

Click to expand...

AndrewS said:

Option 1. China supports the survival of NK. However, this probably means war with the USA. And a ruinous land war in the Korean peninsula is not in the interest of both China and the USA

Option 2. China accepts Korean reunification. China's core interest is the removal of US troops from Korea and the end of the SK-US military alliance. Combined with China's likely growth, the long-term results would be:

• a) Another Vietnam (which is the worse case)
• b) Potentially a Canada/Mexico (in the best case where China is even bigger)

And we can already see that Vietnam is having to come to terms with being part of a Chinese sinosphere.

Yet China is still growing fast. A deceleration in growth to 6% still means the economy doubles in size over the next 12 years, which is far in excess of Korea/JP/USA. Also note that China has only just passed the USA in terms of commercial R&D spending. So China's trajectory is still ramping upwards.

Click to expand...

sanblvd said:

I hear what you saying, but I disagree, IF US actually bombed NK nuke sites and destroy NK nuclear capability, they would not go ahead and invade or do regime change simply because China won't allow it and from this fact alone it will not happen.

Also in reverse if US is not going to do regime change and just destroyed NK nuclear sites, then NK won't attack SK or US because it know its suicide for them, as you said, they might kill up to a few million in the first few days with artillery strikes but there is no outcome that NK military would win in a full scale war against SK.

But since I don't think any type of strike will happen so its a moot point, but just in case if US attacks NK nuclear sites, they would probably get secret ok from China, but China would also give US the red line that it cannot cross.

Click to expand...

Equation said:

I disagreed with you here, you are over estimating the US limited strike on NK will come out as a positive outcome for the US benefits only. Any strike on NK will only enhances the regime and its people to be more united and will do anything to hurt the US and it's SK allies. SK can't afford this as they will be host to next years 2018 winter Olympic and they would prefer to keep the status quo and peace as is. Meanwhile the American people at home are NOT very enthusiastic as to have another conflict going on overseas when they have not recovered from the debacle going on in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Click to expand...

AndrewS said:

A John Bolton piece on possible North Korean reunification, if things kick off.

The articles coming out of the policymakers are becoming much more realistic these days.



It's similar to the Korean reunification scenario essay that I posted previously, but there's 2 big issues with his analysis.

1. US troops should not be anywhere near the Chinese border, nor would they really be needed as there are a lot more SK forces on the Korean peninsula.

2. At a minimum, Chinese troops will secure a buffer area next to the North Korean border. And they will not leave unless all US troops are removed from the Korean peninsula and the US-SK military alliance is ended.

Click to expand...

China on Monday told the Republic of Korea (ROK) to stop the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

The new ROK defense minister has said the deployment process would be accelerated to tackle tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

"THAAD deployment will not help to ease the ROK's security concerns, and will do even less to resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a news briefing.

The THAAD system severely undermines China's strategic security interests and the country demands the ROK consider these security concerns, Hua said.

Click to expand...

FriedRiceNSpice said:

I wonder why the PRC is so concerned about THAAD. 1) There a many options in PLA arsenal that a system such as THAAD cannot adequately defend against; likewise, there are options available to PLA to attack and disable THAAD if need be, as they recently held an exercise involving some of these options. 2) If the concern is about signals intelligence, then the PLAAF can simply avoid conducting exercises and tests in the border regions of Manchuria, by simply relocating such operations inland to Tibet and or inner Mongolia, as they do already. Is there something I am missing here?

Click to expand...

sanblvd said:

I'm pretty sure this issue has been pointed out many times in the past, so here is a quick summary.

1. Yes PLA can destroy THAAD easily, but that would mean actually physically attacking South Korea, which is something you don't want to do for the obvious reason.

2. THAAD's radar reach far out to Inner Mongolia, Manchuria and all the way to Russia and beyond, it can keep track and detect all of Chinese missile test launches and identify the real warhead from decoy, and this greatly decrease China's 2nd strike ability. And it can monitor Chinese airspace live time, this takes away Chinese strategic initiative in the event of war, as well as its ability to do 2nd strike.

3. Also send a political message to SK that you can't enjoys all the benefits from doing business with China while at same time violating Chinese interest.

Click to expand...