“Actually, in the past the Chinese army has found losing a few hundred thousand killed a completely sufficient incentive to back the heck down. Ask the Vietnamese, or a Korean war veteran. Hyperbolic yellow peril nonsense about supposed indifference to massive casualties is and always has been a delusion.”
Oh really? I guess its safe to ignore thousands of years of Chinese history then.
The Chinese leadership only cares about massive casualties if it impacts them. If its a means to the end then they will happily throw away lives. Unlike the US they don’t have to worry about the press or about popular opinion. Any disagreement is met with immediate and overwhelming force.
As soon as someone resists they drum up some kinda charges and throw them in jail or just shoot them.
You've got a good point. How many dynasties have fallen in China? Did the people mostly know or care who was up top? Do they now?
As soon as someone resists they drum up some kinda charges and throw them in jail or just shoot them.
That equation only works as long as it works. When there aren't enough people to make the arrests or places to put/kill them, then the balance of power turns to the people.
...Tiannanmen was a drop in the bucket. Just a few kids, isolated, easy to mop up. You put everyone in Shanghai in a gas line and look out, brother.
The chinese are a unique lot. They aren't Dems or Republicans or commies or socialists. They're chinese. As long as the commies can ride the tiger, they'll be nominally in charge.
China would be a Japanese province today, but for the action of US arms.
There is no historical basis for the pretence that China has a special attritionist way of war and a boundless appetite for it, overwhelming less numerous foes. The entire notion can be traced to "yellow peril" scare literature in Britain around the turn of the century.
As a Korean war veteran once put it, "how many hordes are there in a Chinese platoon?"