Generational Dynamics World View

[Warren Dew]

(12-31-2016, 11:36 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: You say, "If such a war went nuclear, the US would lose a bunch of
cities and China would lose everything."

Actually, that's not the Chinese view.  The Chinese position was
stated by a PLA top-level officer that I quoted in 2005:

General Zhu Chenghu Wrote:>   If the Americans are determined to interfere [in Taiwan, then] we
>   will be determined to respond. We ... will prepare ourselves for
>   the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian [in central
>   China].  Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that
>   hundreds ... of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.

Actually, he's saying exactly what I said.  The "Xi" in "Xian" is Chinese for "west"; virtually all of China's population is "east of Xian".  Check out this population density map:



Xian is in the tall, light salmon colored province just to the right of geographical center.  Notice how all the high population density provinces are east of it, and to the west is mostly minimally populated mountains and steppe.

With respect to what China would go to war over, Zhu is an outlier; China officially has a no first use policy.  It is true that China seems to rely purely on nuclear deterrence, and does not maintain any counterforce capability, unlike the US and Russia, and that could cause rapid escalation if anyone tries to use a limited nuclear attack against them, since their force structure makes them incapable of responding with a similarly limited attack.

But we may see your theories tested shortly, as Trump seems headed toward abandoning the One China policy and the US promise not to garrison Taiwan.  I think it makes perfect sense for the US to base part of the Seventh Fleet on Taiwan, but I suppose if Zhu were in charge, that might risk nuclear war.