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Comment by ardit33 | Hacker News Reader

China will absolutely get blockaded itself, as they can't project power, meanwhile get the rest of the world against them.

They don't have much oil, and their economy will be crippled to a standstill.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/China_Oi...

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China is not Japan. China is the 5th largest oil producer in the world, is banking the largest strategic oil reserve, has enough domestic resources and sufficient food security to operate on a self-sustaining war economy, forever. The imports are needed to maintain / grow, but in case of total war footing, there's more than enough production for the war machine even if civilians has to eat rice and ride bikes again. So the question is can PRC break USN blockade or sufficiently prosecute a war until US decide Taiwan is not worth it. If both navies are trading hulls in a shooting war how much loses before USN realizes any victory would be pyrrhic one in which they lose naval hegemony to pursue their global interests. The entirety of Chinese navy which is rapidly closing gap with USN has one goal - to deter / break a USN blockade and secure oil route to ME. All other purposes like Taiwan and SCS is automatically secured if it can do so. And even if China loses, it can still become a giant north korea that's sufficiently close to Taiwan to turn it into Yemen.

"has enough domestic resources and sufficient food security to operate on a self-sustaining war economy, forever."

Any sources?

Disparate sources +napkin math.

There's a lot of analysis out there on Chinese food security, the TLDR is grain production is ~95%, but a lot of it goes towards animal feed. It's around 1000lbs per capita. In terms of crude, China only produces ~4M barrels per day, imports 10M. But the entire US military consumes 300k barrels per day for much broader portfolio. Other resources, only ~30% domestic self sufficiency in iron ore for steel production, but that's still ~300Mt which is ~60x total USN displacement. More or less everything else it stockpiles or can produce enough domestically for military needs, because relative to Chinese production the military doesn't actually use that much resources. All this is to say China is not Japan, it can't be "starved" into impotency, a blockaded China can not only sustain current military, but expand it by multiple folds on her own.

I keep reading this but I don't understand.

In a naval embargo scenario, why wouldn't China simply get its oil from Russia? Delivered over land.

It's my understanding that nowhere near enough pipeline capacity exists, like, not even 10% of China's weekly/monthly oil consumption.

They would just get the oil by trucks.

Sure it is more expensive than getting it by oil tankers. But possible. And it would be cheaper than the US cost of doing a naval embargo.

There is nowhere near enought trucks in existance for that.

Is that really correct?

But wouldn’t china be motivated and have the means to build all of that pipeline very quickly?

Seriously. This is China. No need for environmental impact studies. They built 2 hospitals in a matter of days. They can probably lay down a few tens of thousands of miles of pipe in a week.

They've been building hundreds of thousands of kms of road per year. Although I don't know what the real numbers are.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1189387.shtml

Chinese might.

Russians? IDK. It won't be their war. And the oil wells of Russia are rather far from China border, in pretty inhospitable Siberia.

Russia and China compete. What the OP forgets is that there are plenty of countries such Iran that traditionally used to be US aligned but that have been left with no choice to take whathever deal China has to offer. The population isn't particularly happy about it either, but they don't really feel like they have a choice.

Have you not noticed that there is a 1Trillion development contract with Iran and that there isn't a single Muslim country that has a beef with China's Uighur policy? Also Xinjiang is an oil and gas and generally natural resource rich area. Another reason why China won't give it up. Same with Tibet actually.

China has actually been filling up with Oil by bartering without actually processing the customs required. So technically the oil never transferred ownership to China and therefore its not in breach of sanctions but for all practical definitions the Oil is now in Chinese hands as reserves.

There's also that tiny detail that when China started their nuclear weapons program, Taiwan also had one and that the USA used their global influence and the CIA to shut it down. The reason the power balance is in shambles is that the US focused very strongly on keeping its allies weak and now its coming back to bite everyone.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39252502

EDIT:

Analysis: Iran slips record volume of oil into China, reaches out to Asian clients for trade resumption

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-iran-asia-analysis-id...

The US shutting down the Taiwanese nuclear program wasn’t them keeping their allies weak, it was them saving them from an invasion and us from a nuclear war.

Nuclear deterrence won’t work at that scale it’s also why Israel is worried about an Iranian bomb.

Deterrence works when both sides are at least somewhat equal in size and population, China can take 100’s of nukes and still survive in some form or another you ain’t going to kill 1.5 billion people, Taiwan on the other hand is an island that can be taken out in a single strike.

That seems quite insane: "100 million Chinese people might die if we invade Taiwan, but those are acceptable losses."

I suspect the Chinese leadership aren't that crazy, and if Taiwan had nukes, China would not invade.

The point is that people assume that nuclear deterrence can be achieved by snapping fingers.

China would invade well before Taiwan gets to the point of second strike capability and even a proper first strike.

Taiwan can be essentially evaporated in a first strike, there will be little to no advanced warning and unless they station their nukes off the island they will never be able to build a sufficient deterrence.

It only takes a dozen good megaton nukes to destroy, say, 80% of Chinese industrial potential, which is concentrated in a few large cities. A lot of population is also concentrated in a few major cities, especially the most educated and qualified population. (Same applies to US, Russia, and many other countries.)

That is, yes, Chinese nation won't be obliterated; most people would survive. But the resulting chaos would be nothing like the country before that. It would be up for grabs for the strongest local groups, and whatever international / foreign forces which would inevitably come with humanitarian aid.

Most importantly, the powers that be can't hope to retain the control of the country, to say nothing of their own quality of life (and maybe the life itself).

This is why nuclear deterrence works.

So now we are jumping to megaton nukes? You do realize that the current Minutemen warheads in the US arsenal are ~300kt each right? Most nations don’t have multi megaton nukes standing at the ready, and Taiwan could never get to that point in the first place.

Getting to one nuke sure maybe, getting to dozens warheads you claim are needed and the 100’s in reality that would be needed, a robust delivery system and a first and second strike capability... are you kidding me?

Nuclear deterrence works well with near peers, it doesn’t work when one side can’t take a single hit and the other can.

The US play their game.

It may describe Taiwan as an allied but in reality they are just a piece on the chess board of varying importance.

In the 80es mainland China was a key pawn to be played against the Soviets.

Today containment of China is the big goal. And Taiwan plays an important role in preventing Chinese access to the pacific, and also in the US China tech war.

But ultimately it may be sacrificed (again).

This time Taiwan is a vulnerability for US that the US would rather not have, but it's still a vulnerability. If China suddenly takes Taiwan, the US may be forced into war or see massive infrastructure and economic disruption.

I suppose a major economic disruption is inevitable in any hot war scenario, at the very least because TSMC is going to be destroyed in this case, by the Taiwanese themselves, or their allies.

To say nothing of not buying the inexpensive goods made in China anymore.

Perhaps this is why they are trying to rebuild a Silk Road across Eurasia, which would cross through the mid-east?

They're going to be sucking their oil through a straw. Pipelines don't have nearly the same capacity as tankers.

But they are pushing their economy towards renewables, and by the 2040s the majority of China might be powered by alternatives to oil, leaving them enough to keep their military going without disrupting manufacturing.

Pipelines also have the added bonus that if the US tries to sabotage them, they've just attacked a bunch of neutral countries. Not a good look.

As someone from Bulgaria I still remember how the Yugoslavian war played out. NATO doesn’t seem to have any qualms in abusing weaker independent nations if their military interests require it.

Granted they just used Bulgaria’s airspace but the feeling was “we don’t give a F*ck what you think, deal with it”. Bulgaria is now _in_ NATO itself, but it wasn’t back then. There was a strong pro Russian (anti Nato) sentiment and I think that war in particular showed a lot of people what a precarious geopolitical position that actually was.

It is only one rail line and some roads... it takes a couple of B2s to destroy the link. The US doesn't have to hit china itself (to avoid any nuclear escalation). It will hit the silk road in the secondary countries where it passes (eg. Kazakhstan). Siberia is huge and the Russian - China link is very inefficient.

Also, China is in bad terms with almost every other neighbor it has (territory disputes with almost every one).. and they will be glad to see it humbled a notch or two and will not help.

Nobody is blockading China. Nobody would dare. Biden just said he's fine with slavery in China, he won't so much as voice a negative opinion about their human rights atrocities. The Europeans aren't much better. Absolutely nobody is blockading them. The Saudis and Russians will sell China all the oil it cares to buy, and the Russians can deliver it via pipeline trivially.

Besides that, they're not going to need most of that oil in ~20 years.

Quick question: what has happened to China as a result of what they did regarding the pandemic? Millions of people just died, along tens of trillions of dollars in economic destruction. They lied about the pandemic, they hid the outbreak as long as they could, they're still hiding information about its origin and the early days. Barely anyone even cares to dispute that, they all just shrug about it. Where are the sanctions? Where's the blockade? Right. Nobody dares. Barely so much as a squeak in their direction. If I'm China I'm starting to ask: well then, what else can I get away with so easily?

Let's see here. They don't care when I enslave 500,000 people to pick cotton. They don't care when I commit cultural genocide and put millions of people in camps. They don't care when I violate prominent international agreements at will and strip Hong Kong of all of its rights. They don't care when I support a military dictatorship and coup in Myanmar. They don't care when I prop up and enable a crazy nuclear dictatorship in North Korea. They don't care when I destroy Tibet and culturally strip the entire nation. They don't care when I annex territory the size of France - from numerous of my neighbors - in the South China Sea by military force. And so on. (and before anyone bothers, that I pointed out these facts about China doesn't simultaneously imply the US is The Good Guy, I'll save someone that logic failure)

But oh boy, the world is suddenly going to care about Taiwan as China begins their annexation formally. The buck stops there, no doubt about it. Un huh.

Before another 10-15 years goes by they're going to have the world's most powerful military overall (they'll still lag in tech in some areas). It's exceptionally obvious. The US can't afford to continue its global projection, it's rapidly weakening (courtesy of the extraordinarily stupid decisions it has made fiscally over the past 20 years), and China is just beginning its global projection phase; one will contract, one will de facto conquer the world. The pandemic helped tip the US over fiscally into a more rapid downward spiral, it pulled that future forward by a lot.

Have you seen China's export machine during the pandemic? They took market share. They've become far more potent economically while their competitors have been severely weakened. As a future bet, who's taking Boeing versus China at this point? Intel & Co. vs China's future in semiconductors? The US is in a very bad position.

Within that 15 year span of time China will be sailing aircraft carriers past Hawaii and off the Pacific US coast, as a show of force, which the US will be entirely unable to stop.

I've rarely seen anything more obvious geo-politically than what is about to happen regarding China. Asia is theirs, absolutely nothing can stop that outcome. They'll even compete toe-to-toe in Latin America for influence, right in the US backyard (as we have been doing in their backyard for so long). The best the US and its allies can hope for is to hold some political & economic ground in Asia and not be entirely neutralized in the region.

The age of the American superpower is over. Act accordingly. The only thing the US is good for now is resource - wealth - extraction, while it lasts (debased by the minute). Then, afterward, get out while you can. Go somewhere nicer, somewhere sane, somewhere with a functional government, a decent culture, a future of prosperity and reason - that isn't the future of the US.

The US is still a very wealthy country. If they handle their role as a declining superpower gracefully, they can maintain that wealth for many decades.

Like UK?

Yeah. The UK did reasonably well. Not civil war, just one IMF bailout, you can still buy something for a pound sterling.

UK did reasonably well mostly because they allied with US the new power, if China really rise as the new power like the article said, it's more like the end of USSC.

People probably downvoting you for the tone, but I think you’re mostly right.

The tone this comment uses is very good at creating a subjective feeling of correctness without many concrete reasons backing it up. Furiously weaving together a grand story of decline makes it hard for the reader to raise important questions like “in which specific ways is US power projection weakened?” or “hold on, how can the US be only good for wealth extraction, didn’t they invent the iPhone just a decade ago?”

I have one thing to argue:

- China exercise an EPIC lockdown to counter the pandemic.

- The West: This is anti-human!

- China actually contained the pandemic.

- The West: They're hiding the real numbers!

- China: Have you considered the possibility that the lockdown really worked?

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