From: shane <DEICHMAN@cisco.nosc.mil>
Subject: China and Expansionism
Organization: NCR Corporation - Law Department
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 14:09:48 GMT


From shane <DEICHMAN@cisco.nosc.mil>


  To try to assuage Mr. Spencer's fears that Red China is 
going to sow their wild oats of expansionism in the near 
future (thereby threatening the close U.S. ally of Australia),
let me reiterate what I've said before on this newsgroup:

	Red China is a threat to nobody (except defenseless
	Third World nations like Tibet, who lack both the
	ability and the wherewithall to maintain a robust
	resistance movement).  Exclamation point. Ibidum.

  In 1969, during the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Red 
Chinese troops marched into Russia to take back some dirt they 
felt was rightfully theirs.  The Soviets waited for a few days 
while they considered their options, then succinctly drove the 
Chinese back into China, destroying every standing structure 
within a mile of the border.  The Chinese smarted from that 
defeat for some ten years, until they thought they'd play some 
hardball with the Vietnamese in 1979.

  During the course of that ill-fated campaign, the Chinese 
suffered over 60,000 casualties in the FIRST THREE DAYS.  
Fully one half of their mechanized units were incapacitated 
during that same time period.  To add insult to injury, the 
regular Vietnamese troops never even mobilized in any 
significant show of force -- most of the Chinese losses were 
at the hands of the local militia!

  A former professor of mine was a Sinologist (is that what 
they call them?); on one of his first trips to Beijing, he 
remarked to his guide that the trees he saw troops planting 
while wearing their dress uniforms must have had some 
significance.  "Oh, those are their ONLY uniforms," he was 
told.

  But wait!  China is a NUCLEAR power!  What about that?  
Well, the Chinese do indeed have nuclear know-how; they also 
have an ICBM force of less missiles that you have fingers.  
Their missile force is archaic, with 1950s-esque targeting 
systems and single warhead technology, not to mention unstable
liquid propellants that have to be fueled on the pad.  Their 
medium range missile force would probably do more damage to 
China than to any adversary....

  The truth of the matter is that China, despite it's 1.2 
billion people, is a remarkably poor nation.  This fact is 
lost on many American businesspeople, who look to China and 
see 1.2 billion mouths yearning for mouthwash, or 2.4 billion 
yawning armpits eager for deodorant.  While the Chinese have a 
rather robust technology base (due largely to their drive to 
obtain small quantities of high-tech Western good, which they 
then reverse-engineer and built for themselves), their 
military lacks the most essential component of any force 
enduring the growing pains of expansionism -- MOBILITY.  Most 
of the Chinese regulars have to march wherever they attack, so 
any conquest of Indonesia or Australia would require them to 
get their feet wet... :-)  Remember, amateurs talk tactics -- 
professionals talk logistics!

  While China IS purchasing the VARYAG from Russia/Ukraine 
(allowing them the finance the continued operation of the 
disputed Black Sea Fleet until they formally split it in 
1994), I doubt they will use it as the U.S. Navy uses their 
carriers (i.e., power projection).  The Chinese have 
historically been one of the world's most isolationistic 
nations.  I don't think the fact that George Herbert Walker 
sold the Taiwanese (whom the Chinese consider subordinate, as 
the Federal Government would look upon a single state) a few 
wings of F-16s is going to change this philosophy....

  Just my three rubles, 29 kopecks worth....

-shane

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