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This is one of the more idiotic extrapolations of demographic bomb. Even the one-child policy annual birth rate in China is ~9-10M per year. That's an incredibl

This is one of the more idiotic extrapolations of demographic bomb. Even the one-child policy annual birth rate in China is ~9-10M per year. That's an incredible amount of bodies to recruit from for the needs of modern air / naval warfare with limited casualty potential. Around half of births will be from underclass, where becoming a military martyr for the cause of reunification would be the surest guarantee their family has a meal ticket for the rest of their lives. Throw in upward mobility incentives like preferential queuing for universities, real estate etc - there won’t be a manpower problem.

someperson 5y ago
Those military-age only children are expected to take care of their elderly parents and grandparents. In a world war over Taiwan, it's likely millions of them would die. Leaving each family as "bare branches" since they have no siblings. And eldest male children are especially important in Chinese culture. Given it would be a mass casualty conflict, the upward mobility "support the troops" impact (and guaranteed "meal tickets") would seem to be have a pretty limited.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  Bare branches are already a reality due to one-child. See meme of military wives getting knocked up and married and leeching off military housing when troops deploy in the US. That's what will happen in PRC as well, deployed soldiers with increasing perks due to military modernization / restructuring will be some of the most competitive suitors. >likely millions of them would die It would not be a mass casualty conflict. People who don't follow the subject matter still assume PRC has antiquated military capabilities and relies on dangerous Normandy style amphib invasion. Reality is PRC will steamroll TW like US did Iraq, except force balance is even more lopsided towards PRC in quantity and quality. Logistics of taking TW in PRC backyard is multitudes easier than US occupying Iraq or Afghanistan across the globe. Taking TW without substantial losses is more or less foregone in most strategic thinking. The only concern is the risk of fighting the US on the sea, and that still caps casualties to sub 100,000s even if every PLA ship and plane was destroyed. Which bluntly, relative to other social programs at PRC scale, is a completely tolerable amount. Short of going nuclear, the limits of personnel loss in modern combat is not going to impact CCP political thinking.
  - someperson 5y ago
    > Taking TW without substantial losses is more or less foregone in most strategic thinking. Do you have a source for this? Everything I've read says that the PLA Navy would struggle to take Taiwan even without US involvement. Amphibious landings are the hardest thing in all of warfare, especially since landings can only occur along a Taiwan's well-fortified beaches, and not along its rocky cliff coastline and given the Taiwanese are dug-in and well-armed.
    - dirtyid 5y ago
      Nothing consolidated. It's _recent_ read between the line consensus from US/PRC strategic thinkers if you follow the space closely. See most recent US war gaming scenarios and current indo-pac PRC proposals. War games mostly conclude PRC accomplishes air superiority and control over TW within days and the US can't credibly operate near PRC shores to defend TW. Think tank blobs are all about blockades or IRBMs within 1st island chain to box PRC in, or making TW porcupine to create deterrence, or making US deployments in Japan more survivable. The TLDR is that defending TW directly isn’t even being contemplated anymore, it's assumed to be lost to PRC. The literature around “rescuing” TW if island can put up a fight is becoming just as sparse. >Amphibious landings are the hardest thing in all of warfare, especially since landings can only occur along Taiwan's well-fortified beaches, and not along its rocky cliff coastline and given the Taiwanese are dug-in and well-armed. TW is well defended the same way Iraq’s Republican guard was well dug in. All of it will be gone after PRC controls the battle space from air, TW won’t be in position to threaten the amphib fleet in the first place. Again think Iraq/Afghanistan not Normandy. PRC military modernization was modelled around these capabilities. PLANavy doesn't even have major amphib acquisitions, they're relying on civilian sealift capacity. PLAN too focused on challenging the USN, large scale landing on TW is a secondary consideration kicked down to the merchant fleet. That's how uncontested they expect the eventual landings will be. Many folks are regurgitating very old talking points made popular by articles like “Taiwan can win a war with China'' by Tanner Greer in 2018, himself regurgitating conventional out of date tropes. He was one of the last holdouts and changed his position after seeing the woeful state of the TW military. I would read this follow up article: Why I Fear for Taiwan [0] from 2020 to get a better understanding of TW reality. And I argue he’s still underestimating because he’s not familiar with developments on the PRC side. Reason why I emphasize _recent_ and publication dates of articles is that PLA is modernizing so fast that assumptions from even a few years ago no longer holds true. [0] https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-taiwan.html https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-t...
eloff 5y ago
The issue has nothing to do with military manpower, see my sibling comment.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  >The demographics are not a problem because of how they constrain the number of troops they can field - their population is still quadruple the US, so no problems there. The problem is the economic weakness that comes with a country where each working person supports two retired people (either directly as in family or indirectly as in taxes). That doesn't work as far as we know. So China is right near the peak of their power (maybe 15-30 years away.) I still think that means they'll be patient and wait for their moment. But they can't wait forever. PRC military budget is ~2%, without global commitments that's enough to procure a military that can pace or eclipse the US in relevant domains. Demographic decline problems are mostly social, increase in per capita productivity projected to keep the economy growing. Money is not going to be an issue, and frankly inverted pyramid social problems, which will suck, isn't going to undermine military spending below what's necessary to maintain security interests. Countries much poorer than PRC spends more on military while mainstreet suffers simply due to security realities. And the security reality of PRC is it will always need to take over TW, or have sufficient military to challenge USN in its backyard. Historically, it’s not unusual for large powers to spend 5-10% or more % of GDP on defense. 2% is indefinitely sustainable goal for PRC even with demographic decline. Also Chinese demographics peaking =/= Chinese military capability and appetite for reunification peaking. Realistically PRC could rationalize 2x/3x military spending, especially in time of need.

someperson 5y ago

Those military-age only children are expected to take care of their elderly parents and grandparents. In a world war over Taiwan, it's likely millions of them would die. Leaving each family as "bare branches" since they have no siblings. And eldest male children are especially important in Chinese culture. Given it would be a mass casualty conflict, the upward mobility "support the troops" impact (and guaranteed "meal tickets") would seem to be have a pretty limited.

dirtyid 5y ago
Bare branches are already a reality due to one-child. See meme of military wives getting knocked up and married and leeching off military housing when troops deploy in the US. That's what will happen in PRC as well, deployed soldiers with increasing perks due to military modernization / restructuring will be some of the most competitive suitors. >likely millions of them would die It would not be a mass casualty conflict. People who don't follow the subject matter still assume PRC has antiquated military capabilities and relies on dangerous Normandy style amphib invasion. Reality is PRC will steamroll TW like US did Iraq, except force balance is even more lopsided towards PRC in quantity and quality. Logistics of taking TW in PRC backyard is multitudes easier than US occupying Iraq or Afghanistan across the globe. Taking TW without substantial losses is more or less foregone in most strategic thinking. The only concern is the risk of fighting the US on the sea, and that still caps casualties to sub 100,000s even if every PLA ship and plane was destroyed. Which bluntly, relative to other social programs at PRC scale, is a completely tolerable amount. Short of going nuclear, the limits of personnel loss in modern combat is not going to impact CCP political thinking.
- someperson 5y ago
  > Taking TW without substantial losses is more or less foregone in most strategic thinking. Do you have a source for this? Everything I've read says that the PLA Navy would struggle to take Taiwan even without US involvement. Amphibious landings are the hardest thing in all of warfare, especially since landings can only occur along a Taiwan's well-fortified beaches, and not along its rocky cliff coastline and given the Taiwanese are dug-in and well-armed.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    Nothing consolidated. It's _recent_ read between the line consensus from US/PRC strategic thinkers if you follow the space closely. See most recent US war gaming scenarios and current indo-pac PRC proposals. War games mostly conclude PRC accomplishes air superiority and control over TW within days and the US can't credibly operate near PRC shores to defend TW. Think tank blobs are all about blockades or IRBMs within 1st island chain to box PRC in, or making TW porcupine to create deterrence, or making US deployments in Japan more survivable. The TLDR is that defending TW directly isn’t even being contemplated anymore, it's assumed to be lost to PRC. The literature around “rescuing” TW if island can put up a fight is becoming just as sparse. >Amphibious landings are the hardest thing in all of warfare, especially since landings can only occur along Taiwan's well-fortified beaches, and not along its rocky cliff coastline and given the Taiwanese are dug-in and well-armed. TW is well defended the same way Iraq’s Republican guard was well dug in. All of it will be gone after PRC controls the battle space from air, TW won’t be in position to threaten the amphib fleet in the first place. Again think Iraq/Afghanistan not Normandy. PRC military modernization was modelled around these capabilities. PLANavy doesn't even have major amphib acquisitions, they're relying on civilian sealift capacity. PLAN too focused on challenging the USN, large scale landing on TW is a secondary consideration kicked down to the merchant fleet. That's how uncontested they expect the eventual landings will be. Many folks are regurgitating very old talking points made popular by articles like “Taiwan can win a war with China'' by Tanner Greer in 2018, himself regurgitating conventional out of date tropes. He was one of the last holdouts and changed his position after seeing the woeful state of the TW military. I would read this follow up article: Why I Fear for Taiwan [0] from 2020 to get a better understanding of TW reality. And I argue he’s still underestimating because he’s not familiar with developments on the PRC side. Reason why I emphasize _recent_ and publication dates of articles is that PLA is modernizing so fast that assumptions from even a few years ago no longer holds true. [0] https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-taiwan.html https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-t...

eloff 5y ago

The issue has nothing to do with military manpower, see my sibling comment.

dirtyid 5y ago
>The demographics are not a problem because of how they constrain the number of troops they can field - their population is still quadruple the US, so no problems there. The problem is the economic weakness that comes with a country where each working person supports two retired people (either directly as in family or indirectly as in taxes). That doesn't work as far as we know. So China is right near the peak of their power (maybe 15-30 years away.) I still think that means they'll be patient and wait for their moment. But they can't wait forever. PRC military budget is ~2%, without global commitments that's enough to procure a military that can pace or eclipse the US in relevant domains. Demographic decline problems are mostly social, increase in per capita productivity projected to keep the economy growing. Money is not going to be an issue, and frankly inverted pyramid social problems, which will suck, isn't going to undermine military spending below what's necessary to maintain security interests. Countries much poorer than PRC spends more on military while mainstreet suffers simply due to security realities. And the security reality of PRC is it will always need to take over TW, or have sufficient military to challenge USN in its backyard. Historically, it’s not unusual for large powers to spend 5-10% or more % of GDP on defense. 2% is indefinitely sustainable goal for PRC even with demographic decline. Also Chinese demographics peaking =/= Chinese military capability and appetite for reunification peaking. Realistically PRC could rationalize 2x/3x military spending, especially in time of need.