U.S.- Chinese War possibilities?

[Niiro]

20 years from now, China's economy is in shambles. Their worker population is decimated by decades of the "one-child" policy, they have a huge percentage of elderly who are draining social funds and everyone is discontent.

To distract their population from the problems at home, they manufacture a reason for the US to attack a nation they are allied with, and they invade.

Go.

[Kuya]

Before you make war between the US and China plausible, you first need to create a pretext for why China would sell the US debt it downs. You also have to create a circumstance under which China ceases to sell products to America, or the majority of its products. You could probably make some use of Japan, Taiwan and the Uygurs. Taiwan is recognized by the US as independent, but China has claims over Taiwan, this is because Taiwan is where the previous Chinese governmetn that was allied with the US retreated after they were defeated by the communists. Uygurs are Chinas chechnyans, somewhat. So you could turn them into China's terrorist problem. You can read up on them on wikipedia.

For a pretense for conflict, you can create some sort of financial crisis. The US losing its spot as the world's reserve currency might help, and falling behind another country as the largest economy in the world might help. You could probably say that, due to worldwide falling demand in developped countries, in part due to sovereign debt crisis in Europe that collapsed the european union, and chronic economic contraction in the US due to political paralysis and continued syphoning of resources for wars, China had to decide to grow its own domestic demand to feed its own growth, thereby unlinking China from Europe and the US. China's economy grows largest and the strongest in the world, but its growing local demand has created a oil crisis, leading China to more desperately seek out oil to continue domestic growth.

[falloutboy14]

Could involve internet security into the mix as well. Could have the Chinese try to pull off a 'Live Free or Die Hard' type attack. (If you've never seen the movie, people use internet access to disable power/phone/traffic lights/etc.) Realistically, for a Chinese invasion, you'd need to negate the US air force/navy & even with that, the logistics of feeding, arming & reinforcing an army from the other side of the ocean would be massive.

Perhaps having the Chinese get a foothold/ally in South America first? If you go with the oil theme, you could have the Chinese pal with Hugo Chavez or his replacement.

[Talint]

If there's a war between two world powers like US and China, there's probably going to be a lot of pre-war ramp up first. Espionage, defections, arms race, and things like that. Lots of cold war-style stuff before any attack is directly launched.

In other words, shit has to be way more tense between the two. Right now, it's pretty chill.

[Byrthnoth]

I don't know that we'll ever see a full-fledged superpower vs. superpower battle again. Expanding your country's territory by taking over a recently demolished nation expands your administrative costs without any immediate financial return. It's a bad economic proposition at the moment, when it would be hugely more profitable to keep your geopolitical competitors in what amounts to fiscal servitude (see: the US's relationship with South America).

For instance, China has no compelling reason to ever declare war against the US. Countries don't go to war because they're "mad" at each other. World War II is as close as we've ever come to an ideologically driven war, and you'll notice that started as an act of territorial aggression by the Germans and ended pretty well for the US. If China had reason to go to war with us, it would be smarter of them to sink our economy and way of life by dumping their part of our debt on the market. Doing so would hugely weaken the dollar, and they'd get less for their chunk of our "debt" than it's worth at the moment, but it would be cheaper than fighting a war against us. So they weaken themselves a little, turn us into a third world nation overnight, and now we're the mostly-agrarian nation making crappy plastic toys for their happy meals.

[Andalusian girls]

I don't know that we'll ever see a full-fledged superpower vs. superpower battle again. Expanding your country's territory by taking over a recently demolished nation expands your administrative costs without any immediate financial return. It's a bad economic proposition at the moment, when it would be hugely more profitable to keep your geopolitical competitors in what amounts to fiscal servitude (see: the US's relationship with South America).

Or, you know, the advent of nuclear weapons and MAD ensuring that any future great-power struggle will be a limited one if it is to happen at all. The United States and the U.S.S.R were about as diametrically opposed in all facets as any two nations could be and the pin never dropped.

The days of total war are over and if they returned it would only be for about a half hour.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Who was it that said something along the lines of "I don't know when World War Three will be, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones"? I wanna say Einstein, or maybe Oppenheimer. Point is, if WW3 ever happens, we'll be back to hunting and gathering, only our prey will probably be mutant squirrels the size of houses.

[Zeb]

Could always set it a bit into the future. Where the US has a territorial conflict with China on some asteroid/moon/other space body. Which could lead to war on earth.

[Niiro]

"I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with - stone clubs."

-Albert Einstein

[Byrthnoth]

I don't think nukes will ever be players in wars of conquest. Wars of ideology are different and much more dangerous.

[popsiclestix]

Scenario:
December 2012, US Dollar index is down to 50's. 63 yen to the USD. It becomes no longer feasible for the Japan or China to back the US currency. China admits publicly that it will begin writing off the US debt (which at this point is 3 trillion dollars) and Japan is not moving to buy more currency. Japan's economy is nearly completely exhausted from redeveloping the Tohouku region from massive earthquake in MAR2011. Japan is forgiven for its move but China's is seen as an act of aggression and manipulating their currency. China announces the following day that it is developing a gold backed currency. The entire world market floods to China for their currency. The US tries to defend its position as it is seeing its currency fall. Congress calls for a meeting immediately to determine that if the acts of China deem worthy enough for war. A tiny spat between a China fishing boat near disputed Ryuku islands sparks a rage that Japan feels threatened and demands for higher naval presence by the Japanese population/media/government. The next I could see an American or Japanese ship targeted down by an unknown attack inciting a war.

[Weederr33]

Thanks everyone! I realize it's a very sketchy description of my idea, and yes I must research a shit load more, but it's an idea in the making. I intended it to be set some 10 to 15 years in the future, so that the technology, economical development/destruction was there. But from what I've seen it's probably something that I could just let go. It would be incredibly complex and highly unlikely. But this was all just a simple thought.

[Not Kuno]

You better write a special thanks to BG for doing all this leg work for you.

[Gwynplaine]

The Chinese want a rare mineral found only in the U.S. called Notinchinantium. The militant Chinese decide to infiltrate the U.S. and... yeah whatever... Avatar joke...

[Weederr33]

Or i could china wants to invade the US because some secret hacker sent false plans for the us to nuke and invade china! OR a giant horde of Jews come running over the mountains and start to kill people!

[Shuvo]

This NOTOM (Notice to airmen) has a very realistic short story of a US vs China war.

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-240111-1.html

Its actually pretty fun to read.

Doubtful it will happen though. Nuclear deterrent aside, China as it stands doesn't even have a 'blue water navy', not even an aircraft carrier (The US has 9 super-carriers plus something like another 10 in reserve). I very much doubt we'll see the Chinese military surpass the US military in our lifetimes.

[kuronosan]

Obama can't say China. Can you?

[Fodder]

Assuming it stays non nuclear, isn't China's current strategy to simply throw so many missiles at the US that they simply overwhelm the targets? Or was it simply evict the Amerkans from the US when we finally can't pay the interest portion of our debt? I forget.

[Sylvrdragon]

How about this:

The US President gets hooked to an MMO. Over time, the Chinese RMT develop a super-phishing email that fools him and manage to steal his account and all of his security questions and pertinent info making it impossible for him to get it back. In response, the President declares War on RMT (see: War on Drugs, War on Terror). Tens of thousands of US nerds abandon the PVE Servers in favor of PVP so that they may retaliate freely. Following their primary clientele, the Chinese walk right into our trap... The RMT are ganked mercilessly and RMT income drops to near-zero. Recognizing the impending financial crisis, the Chinese government decides to strike the only way they can... they make a mile-wide Human Bridge spanning the Pacific ocean and invade California...

[JigglyJam]

stop shooting for the moon, just do a naruto furry homoerotic fanfic like the rest of the wannabe writers and be done with it