The most scary thing for the west right now has to be the ability for China to organize these massive operations almost flawlessly. The US showed recently that they cannot even manage a small parade, while France also had a terrible Olympics inauguration, these things are often downplayed by people as meaningless but they really showcase the skill of planning and organizing. There is a clear erosion in these skills in the West while there is a clear refinement in China, i still remember the beijing olympics in 2008 being jaw-dropping and it's been almost 20 years by now.
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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Exactly like say a war breaks out. Whoever launches fighters fastest takes the skies. China was launching them within feet of each other one after another. Meanwhile the US has theirs crashing while trying to land alone lol.
one thing that always strikes me is how disciplined and stylish the PLA looks in their parades. Not a single person out of step
BECAUSE THEYLL BE GENOCIDED IF THEY DOOOOOOOOO !!!!!
WONT ANYONE PLEASE THINK OF Xinjiang?! ANYONE?!
Its now clear that China would defeat the US in a conventional war.
Like others said, it's already been clear, that the US wouldn't be able to win a war of aggression against China on Chinese territory, since they can't even beat Yemen.
But to call Chinas the strongest conventional military force is just wrong. The chinese military is focused entirely on defending China, because they aren't trying to rule the world by force. The fact, that the US still exists and hasn't totally collapsed yet is entirely due to it's aggressive military stranglehold on most of the world. China couldn't and wouldn't do the same. To build the necessary bases all around the world would take many years and many wars would have to be fought over them.
China is winning economically, not militarily. And by using it's defenses for holding out until the US collapses from it's own internal contradictions.
Strong doesnt mean aggressive.
I know. That's why I said they couldn't. Not just they wouldn't. At the current point in time, China is still weaker military than the US in that they are not able by far to force their will on most of the world anywhere near the way the US is currently doing, even if they were aggressive.
Why do you measure a nations strength by its ability to force its will on others? If the US were to bring all their forces to bear against China in a conventional war China would likely win. Them choosing to focus on the defensive doesnt make them weaker.
That would be like saying 1000 sword armed horsemen are stronger than a single fortress with machine guns on its battlements because the horses can attack other places and the fort cant.
'Strong' is a vague term that could mean 'power projection' or 'resilience' and I don't think you folks need to decide which one 'strong' refers to by default when you already agree on the relevant details:
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US has power projection.
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China has no interest in power projection.
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US doesn't have anywhere near enough power projection to defeat China in China.
Yes, you're right. Well said, thanks.
Why do you measure a nations strength by its ability to force its will on others?
Because that's how most of the West defines strength. Their view is that if you aren't forcing others to submit to your will, someone else will do it to you. You can see this way of thinking every time they start to panic about how bad it would be if the US was no longer the number one world power because in their minds that means that instead of imposing their way of life on others, other people would do it to them. It doesn't compute that a nation could have strength and not use it to subdue others.
You also frequently see the argument being made that China's military is weak because it isn't constantly involved in wars and as a result lacks experience. A lot of people believe that if you don't go to war regularly then you lose your edge and you will be conquered by others who do. This sort of mentality is extremely common in the West, but is absolutely alien to China which has more or less had the same borders since the Ming dynasty and has always been inclined toward isolationism over expansionism.
I think there was never any real doubt that Vhina would win in a conventional war against the USA. The factors were always so stacked against the Americans that winning for them has been largely impossible since even the early 2000s.
Not only is China's mass manufacturing base far superior to the US, they also have the distance advantage (don't have to carry materials across the pacific), and have clear win conditions (retake taiwan or repell the US) allowing for much better public mobilisation.
Furthermore, US military assets are constantly worn down and tied up in conflicts around the world. People believe that US troops are so experienced because of their constant campaigns. Pure idiocy. Modern war is not fought using cavalry charges and pikemen. Modern war is fought using equipment, which in the US case has been degraded by overuse (look at their own reports for the readiness of their weapons). And that weaponry is not easy to replace or iterate either because of the small production rates and long lead times for everything. The experienced soldiers that people glaze the US for come back in wheelchairs and with PTSD.
The number of disabled veterans has jumped by 25 percent since 2001 - to 2.9 million - and the cause really is no mystery.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/number-of-disabled-us-veterans-rising/
Yes, the nunber of disabled veterans in the US is more than twice the size of its entire army.
All of these latest technological improvements only change the odds even more to China's side. A US-China war, if it happened without the use of nukes would likely not be WW3. It would be over fairly quickly, and afterwards US hard/soft power would start declining even more rapidly. There really isn't any point for either US or China to launch massive land campaigns that take multiple years to finish.
And if the war happened with the use of nukes, it would also be over quickly.
Well from what Ive seen one of the biggest concerns for China is if the US were to just fortify a wide blockade thats out of range of many of their missiles and try to just mess with their ability to trade. Which theyd have to break and put their navy at risk. But with these new unmanned naval assets and air assets they can attack with 0 risk. Pilots and ships are safe they just build more equipment. Meanwhile the US has to defend and takes actual losses. Plus any equipment they lose is going to take longer to replace.
Its a fantastic position for China to be in.
The US enforcing a wide blockade against China would be unfeasible due to the sheer size of the Chinese coastline and the US dependence on Chinese trade. I do agree that better equipment does allow China to reduce losses.
I think by 'wide blockade', OP is referring to blockading the South China Sea by way of the rather small straits connecting it to the wider Pacific. The U.S. game plan is to park warships in the Strait of Malacca and the alternative straits (spanning from Taiwan, Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaysia; notice a pattern with US vassals and regime change attempts?), thereby blockading China.
Yes theyve also got south korea and Japan and their base in Okinawa too. They dont really need to do anything but make it unsafe for commercial shipping. As we saw with Yemen and their blockade companies wont take the risk. China would have to secure safe routes or ships will refuse to move.
These tariffs were imo a shock test to see which areas are hit worst by a loss of Chinese shipping to the US. So they can prepare for it.
AKA the first island chain
They also just have more dudes
3.5x the pop and 40% of usians obese
Have any cool sources on this new equipment? Sounds promising.
You can watch the parade on youtube. Actual info is going to be classified tho
I'm really curious to know who would have the advantage in cyber attacks as well. China would probably knock out key US satellites at the beginning of any war. I wonder if the US would have anything other than its massive nuclear arsenal to pose any sort of threat to China.
The US certainly poses a threat. Theyd do massive damage im sure. China could withstand it but they dont want to sacrifice their peoples well being to a war if they dont need to.
As for cyber war im not too confident in the US. Many of their systems are outdated and even rogue hackers have gotten into them. But i also dont think China would target civilian infrastructure like power grids unless they had to. Since the human cost would be huge. I think their goal in a war with the US would be to simply outlast the US and let it collapse.
i don't imagine most of us civilians will escape suffering when the war happens. The US just doesn't give a fuck about its citizens.
Thats not what i meant. I just meant unlike Israel, and the US, China will likely abide by international law and not target civilian areas.
no i know, sorry, but i meant, no matter what happens US civilians will suffer this go around, but we should be so lucky to fight a war against China who wouldn't purposely kill us at home