China may go to war with Vietnam to shore up support: Russian media

[Silent Hunter]

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"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions." - Robert Lynd (1879-1949)

It's one of two quotes from David Weber's sci-fi novel The Short Victorious War (the third in the Honor Harrington series), where the war that is actually started proves to be anything but.

[Silent Hunter]

China of course, just like any large country, is a menace to many people. Any power that great is.

But they certainly don't do things like invading an occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, or anything like that.

I'm not trying to say they're run by saints, they aren't, but for all their flaws countries have far less to be worried about from the Chinese Military than the American Military.

As always I'm too aggressive in my first post, but there's a point there somewhere.

I gave some reasons why China would not wage war: too much going within their borders, lacking the technology to project influence, etc. But a misguided reason would be to say "China's not like warmongering America".  That's not an informative way to analyze the world, not to mention it evades how the US came to have its global presence anyway.

The PLA lacks the capability to project power that far beyond their borders (i.e. aircraft carriers or long-range bombers) and the global basing network the US has. There aren't a lot of places locally it could invade with a guarantee of success if it was inclined that way.