As an aside, thinking about it - a scenario where China goes to war over the need to assert sovereignty over Hong Kong is almost certainly going to spread. I made the earlier statement that China isn't expansionist per-se, and that's true. But what China considers sovereign territory may be what other countries also claim is their turf, such as the Diaoyu/Senkaku and Spratly Islands.
This should be pretty obvious, since China's maritime territory disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines have been consistently in the news these past few months. These claims would almost certainly still exist in the IST timeline, since most of them date back to before the Communist Party took power - you want to blame the people that now run Taiwan for that.
Amusing, some media and academics in China are currently questioning Japan's claims to Okinawa...but this is basically extreme crackpot politics. This stuff is coming out of the Global Times. The international English media tends to characterise the Global Times as a state-owned newspaper and media network. That's true, but everything in China's state-owned. The Global Times is really China's answer to Fox News at its worst.
Anyway, digressions aside - I mention this because talk about the extent of the war was...what, Hong Kong, spillover with North Korea and South Korea, the Philippines?
Is there consensus is on how far fighting might actually spread, in the event that a war (or wars) in Asia actually breaks out?
There's also a lot of focus thus far in the timeline on land war and land occupation. Though personally I think it'd more likely for there to be naval (or maritime aviation) clashes involving China, the Koreas...perhaps Vietnam, the Philippines, maybe Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and so on. I'm thinking WWII with more flying people hijinx, but that's just the war comics fan in me talking.
It's likely Australia would play a role as well; traditionally they've been a major contributor to real-world UN military and paramilitary missions deployed in the region, for instance following the civil war in (and eventual independence of) East Timor.
EDIT: I really really do apologise if I'm at all coming off as a nitpicking know-it-all dick about this. It's just that this is kind of my thing, so I can't help but poke at it.
-- Acyl
This should be pretty obvious, since China's maritime territory disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines have been consistently in the news these past few months. These claims would almost certainly still exist in the IST timeline, since most of them date back to before the Communist Party took power - you want to blame the people that now run Taiwan for that.
Amusing, some media and academics in China are currently questioning Japan's claims to Okinawa...but this is basically extreme crackpot politics. This stuff is coming out of the Global Times. The international English media tends to characterise the Global Times as a state-owned newspaper and media network. That's true, but everything in China's state-owned. The Global Times is really China's answer to Fox News at its worst.
Anyway, digressions aside - I mention this because talk about the extent of the war was...what, Hong Kong, spillover with North Korea and South Korea, the Philippines?
Is there consensus is on how far fighting might actually spread, in the event that a war (or wars) in Asia actually breaks out?
There's also a lot of focus thus far in the timeline on land war and land occupation. Though personally I think it'd more likely for there to be naval (or maritime aviation) clashes involving China, the Koreas...perhaps Vietnam, the Philippines, maybe Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and so on. I'm thinking WWII with more flying people hijinx, but that's just the war comics fan in me talking.
It's likely Australia would play a role as well; traditionally they've been a major contributor to real-world UN military and paramilitary missions deployed in the region, for instance following the civil war in (and eventual independence of) East Timor.
EDIT: I really really do apologise if I'm at all coming off as a nitpicking know-it-all dick about this. It's just that this is kind of my thing, so I can't help but poke at it.
-- Acyl