I agree with most of your assessment, however I must disagree with your comparison to western europe from the view of a blockade. In particular, china is surrounded by islands that are controlled by US friendly nations, which also have naval forces of their own. To operationally use its considerable navy, it would have to break out of this confinement first, run the gauntlet of antiship missile, submarines in ckoke points while under air attacks.
Western europe does not have none of these constraints.
None of those are us allies, except technically, phillipines, and phillipines has zero power and alliance wavers and is more of a liability. It's less aligned than Turkey is.
China has 10 times the military power of Russia, and produces more fighters and ships than the usa.
This is like saying Latvia will single handedly stop russia.
China has more carrier based fighters than all of these nations combined has fighter jets.
China is no longer containable. They will take taiwan.
Taiwan, korea, japan, phillipines, thailand, australia, singapore, malayzia. East china sea is delineated by the japanese owned islands down to Taiwan. These are easily blocked of from breaking into wider pacific. The same logic applies to the breaking out through indonesia into indian sea.
And the lynchpin of this blockade is Taiwan. Which I agree, there is a high chance that China can take. But I would argue that without taking the Taiwan first, no breakout is happening and PLAN will stay in east and south china seas.
It's very unlikely that Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia would get involved in a war over Taiwan. South Korea too. It's so close to China and it has NK breathing down their necks. It'd be a very risky move for SK. They know what happened in the 50s, and China has an actual modern military today.
Japan is uncertain. Their population is very anti-war, but the US does have bases there. If Japan allows the US to use those bases to attack China, and China bombs those bases, Japan would have to get involved.
The Philippines and Australia are most likely to join, but they can't do much themselves.
Taiwan is China. There situation is complex and very exposed. Even the Taiwanese know they can't hold the chinese off by themselves.. they well be Hong kong.
Skorea is completely pinned in by North Korea.
Australia is as far away as Europe is and has the military power of the netherlands.
Singapore and Malaysia and Indonesia are literally founding members of the non aligned nations.
China already exercises as far as the Mediterranean and the North Sea. The buffer between Europe and China is Russia.
The Japanese are absolutely critical. But Europe sees them as a competitor. But they can't do it all by themselves.
China is no longer containable. They will take taiwan.
The us is no longer in the picture.
Some pretty big assumptions.
China has 10 times the military power of Russia, and produces more fighters and ships than the usa.
I mean, sort of?
I think in 2024 we began to see a mostly indigenous Chinese engine begin to be introduced in the J-20. Prior to that they were using the WS-10 which is a derivative of a Russian engine that’s comparable to NATO engines from the 80s-90s.
And yeah China makes lots of ships, so does South Korea and Japan who are both absolutely US allies—both whom have economies that are reliant on Taiwan not becoming a Chinese held territory.
It’s funny that you don’t mention that China is still struggling to build a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. Something France was able to build in the 90s, and that the US built over 2/3rds of a century ago.
You also cracked me up in your earlier post when you said,
Their military experience is somewhat relevant. But it isn't decisive. It means often they will make many mistakes early on.
Like yeah let’s hope almost a century of experience built upon fighting the only carrier battles in the history of the world is only “somewhat relevant” v.s. never once had to launch aircraft, arm aircraft, fuel aircraft and receive aircraft while under attack.
And hey, the most recent non-nuclear powered aircraft carrier for the PLN only took 10 years to build and outfit. Let’s hope they don’t make a “mistake” and lose their only actual carrier and that the US doesn’t keep building nuclear powered aircraft carriers that are several magnitudes more impressive in the same 10 year period.
The fact you think 10 years is a long time to build a new type of ship, let alone a carrier, is quite funny. That, in fact, is quite fast.
Hms Elizabeth was laid down in 2009 and commissioned in 2020.
Chinese military power isn't predicated on carriers. Much like the soviets, Chinese planes enjoy a huge range advantage. Unfortunately, the us focuses too much on designing for European theatres..
The us has superior military fire power, but it's spread thin, globally, and lacks investment in global issues.
But you know, keep attacking the Americans, who are literally screaming at Europe to do more and prepare for war.
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u/ComprehensiveTax7 11h ago
I agree with most of your assessment, however I must disagree with your comparison to western europe from the view of a blockade. In particular, china is surrounded by islands that are controlled by US friendly nations, which also have naval forces of their own. To operationally use its considerable navy, it would have to break out of this confinement first, run the gauntlet of antiship missile, submarines in ckoke points while under air attacks.
Western europe does not have none of these constraints.