Who would win?
How does it start? A scenario that allows the two to duke it out without world intervention would be a challenge to come up with.
Russia has lots of old equipment, China an ever increasing amount of new equipment.
Russia does have a history high tech weapons but their high tech has not performed well in their missiles and space tech lately.
I think Russia if their troops could be motivated to fight say by a belligerent China led by a madman.
China wins if a belligerent Russia led by a mad Putin and oligarchy convince themselves an aggressive attack against China was in their interest. Chinese are becoming more and more nationalistic and proud. They would fight hard against a mad Russian attack.
I also can’t see a credible scenario here, but I voted that Russia would win because I can’t see them losing. If China would invade in force, the war very quickly would become nuclear, and Russia is way ahead in that field. I know that “a conventional war” is a premise of the poll, but that’s just not how things would work out.
I can’t see the Russian army occupying all of China either, but they could sure turn the country into a radioactive wasteland.
In the end, nobody wins.
Is this WW II history ?
No.
Russia by far has the advantage in terms of tactical nuclear weapons, they could take it any incoming Chinese tank formations with very little collateral damage to important Russian posessions.
China is already on shaky ground socially and politically, you throw in a potentially world ending war started by the Chinese government the Chinese communist party and the entire system of Chinese government would be overthrown by the Chinese people.
The last thing a Chinese conscript army would want to do would be to go up against combat hardened Russian troops (Georgia, Chechnya, Still some Vets from Afghanistan) who have easy access to tactical nuclear weapons which would quickly blunt any Chinese advance in Russian territory.
The war itself would quickly turn into a bloody stalemate, but Putin has the support and love of the Russian people, the Chinese government has neither from its people only the fear of not supporting the party. So in the end my money is on the Russians.
China, hands down. Russia dosnt have the edge people think it dose, and China is not as far behind as we like to think. On the contrary, they have modern arms, and a much smaller and better trained army then they once did. Numbers dont play an advantage anymore, but the Chinese army is still quite large and is atleast on par with the training the Regular Russian army gets.
In air power I could see the Russians having an edge, but only slightly, while the Russians have a few better craft, the Chinese have more that are slightly less as good. The problem is that Russian pilots dont get anywhere near the amount of flying time and training as their Chinese counter parts. Not saying the Russian pilots arent good, but you’ll have a weird scenario where Chinese pilots with inferior craft and fighting Russians pilots with superior craft, but the Chinese are more fimilar with their craft and the Russians less so. Its an odd scenario but they would almost break even.
Naval…… would be the military equivelent of two retards playing “happy-slaps” and it dosnt really bare to think about. The Chinese Navy is small but some-what useful, and all the Russian ships are old and a bigger danger to their crews then to anyone else (espically the submarines).
@Octospire:
China is already on shaky ground socially and politically, you throw in a potentially world ending war started by the Chinese government the Chinese communist party and the entire system of Chinese government would be overthrown by the Chinese people.
What proof do you have of this? I was just there last month, and you couldnt be more incorrect.
Chinese are becoming more and more nationalistic and proud. They would fight hard against a mad Russian attack.
On the contrary, the Chinese have always been a very proud and nationalistic people, long before these modern times.
In non-nuclear contact China since Russia mainly has old Soviet equipment, but China has huge population and more advanced weaponry which is starting to catch up to Russia in power and China spends $100,000,000,000 on defense spending (2nd in the world) and Russia spends $56,000,000,000 on it (5th in the world.)
http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison.asp This has more detail just choose China and Russia.
China is already on shaky ground socially and politically, you throw in a potentially world ending war started by the Chinese government the Chinese communist party and the entire system of Chinese government would be overthrown by the Chinese people.
What proof do you have of this? I was just there last month, and you couldnt be more incorrect.
There is the China you see that the Chinese government wants you to see, then theres the other China people actually live in. This other China is full of people who hate their countries government and their lack of personal freedoms. There are massive social issues in China as behind the communist guises it is run in the exact same way Chiang did before the revolution, with elites controlling everything and effectively above the law.
While times are good, the Chinese majority will turn a blind eye to their countries injustices and lack of freedoms, but if you take away massive wage growth and economic stability you have a powderkeg of both ethnic and class tensions which threatens to tear China apart. China likes to be portrayed as a unified nation but it is in fact comprised of over 40 different ethnic groups most of whom vehemently oppose the Chinese government (as is illustrated when the Western media actually gets a chance to report on these stories, which is quite rare).
This isnt just anti-communist and anti-Chinese propoganda either my opinion is informed by both first hand accounts from people who have lived in China and news reports from independent sources such as the BBC.
My apologies to the mods if this is getting too political.
There is the China you see that the Chinese government wants you to see, then theres the other China people actually live in. This other China is full of people who hate their countries government and their lack of personal freedoms.
Yes, Im sure the Chinese goverment has nothing better to do then cover up all these things during my numerious trips there as a private citizen on holiday and extended stays over the past 10 years, Being such an important individual and all! :lol: good on you for using the BBC though, its where I get my news :-)
I think the important thing to note is that we need to clarify that we’re talking about a non-nuclear war here, because if going to include nuclear war then we need to add a third voting option that says “nobody” cause after the atomic purging they’d inflict on eachother the fallout would devastate the world.
China.
No doubt.
You’re talking about BILLIONS of people, for many of which a cot and 3 square a day is a STEP UP.
Economy is superior.
Manpower is superior.
Will is superior.
Corruption is equally replete.
Military Tradition is superior.
Discipline is higher.
Sphere of influence is also superior. Everyone from the arabs, to the Koreans would lend the chinese an ear, over the old soviet state.
Europe isn’t going to bail out Russia methinks.
The population of Russia was 142,905,200 as per the preliminary results of the 2010 Census
With just over 1.3 billion people (1,330,044,605 as of mid-2008), China is the world’s most populous country.
Ok, everyone who voted RUSSIA was an idiot.
You could kill, HALF A BILLION Chinamen and there would still be a 5 to 1 ratio, of Chinese to Russians.
HALF A BILLION is alot of people. WW2 only killed 60 million.
That means Russia would have to kill, 10 times as many people, as died on a whole in the second world war, just to get it to 1 vs 5….
Think about that for a moment. It’s even worse from an occupation stand point.
It’s the same thinking that cost the germans the war, yea they were better, hands down. But so what, sooner or later, you run out of men.
Russia has to use nukes just to stay in the game, but because of the culture, I doubt it would even phase the Chinese government.
The Russians couldnt make enough bullets to shoot all the Chinese Their economy is too powerful also
China.
No doubt.
You’re talking about BILLIONS of people, for many of which a cot and 3 square a day is a STEP UP.
Economy is superior.
Manpower is superior.
Will is superior.
Corruption is equally replete.
Military Tradition is superior.
Discipline is higher.
Sphere of influence is also superior. Everyone from the arabs, to the Koreans would lend the chinese an ear, over the old soviet state.
Europe isn’t going to bail out Russia methinks.
Europe would bail out Russia I reckon, so would the Americans. There is no way Europe or the U.S would ever let China become all powerful by conquering all of Russia.
The Europeans wouldnt accept the Chinese on their doorstep either would the Americans like China being so close to Alaska if they conquered Russia.
Also the Japanese and Tawainese would be more than willing to open up a second front in any war as they know they would be on China’s hit list sooner or later.
To clarify my somewhat muddled position.
China invades Russia > Europeans, Americans, Japanese, Tawainese perhaps even the Indians get involved > China gets crushed either under the weight of massive opposition, or Nuclear winter.
Post war multinational occupation force occupies China much like Germany post WW2 until such time a cohesive democratic government can be put together and China’s remaining nuclear arsenal can be disarmed.
The problem with the original question is, of course, that there wouldn’t be a non-nuclear war. So the third option, “nobody wins”, seems to be the most accurate.
And with the nukes, Russia “wins” even without any help from either Europe or the US. It’s way ahead of China in nuclear capacity and missile technology, and has the strategic advantage of having a bigger country and a more dispersed population.
@suprise:
The Russians couldnt make enough bullets to shoot all the Chinese Their economy is too powerful also
The Russian economy? This is incorrect. The Chinese economy is quickly becomming the world largets and is already one of the most dynamic in the world. The Russian economy is strong but not powerful, the all mighty petro-dollar withers in the face of the diverse nd growing Chinese economy
That’s what he is saying Clyde, the russians can’t beat the chinese their (chinese) economy is too powerul.
And FOR THE RECORD, if Europe tries to bail out the Russians, what about all the other little states, like North Korea, Vietnam, Aghanistan, Iran, African states etc… what would their price be? And would they join China against their age old enemies? it’s a new world war.
LETS NOT FORGET, that the socialist like mind hates war, and the mandate of the European Union and it’s beureacrats is one of national suicide. I don’t think countries like Turkey, Poland, and Romania are going to want to get in the fight particularily, And even if they did… they wouldn’t amount to more than a speed bump.
Europe was in the last two, they are going to sit the next one out. There is NO ONE with the resolve of Churchill or others left, save perhaps the German Chancellor, but really, is europe prepared for that kind of conflict? No.
As for Americans, Canadians, the Commonwealth and Japan, we’ll be in a pitch fight over the pacific, long before we’re putting boots on the ground in Russia.
That’s what he is saying Clyde, the russians can’t beat the chinese their (chinese) economy is too powerul.
Ya know what, I saw it early this morning and misread what it said, I thought it said the Russians could, my bad, sorry suprise attack
@suprise:
the all mighty petro-dollar withers in the face of the diverse nd growing Chinese economy
China has no currency that can compete with the USD. The Yuan is crap. China’s per-capita also nothing worth bragging about.
1 Chinese yuan = 0.157319 U.S. dollars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
USA no. 7/7/9
China no. 94/95/100
Yeah.
