Regarding Shepherd's point about China not having taken over North Korea in the real world... I'm not an expert, I'm just a junior research minion. But I'm told by an expert that I do work with...that at least some Chinese policymakers want a stable and independent North Korea, as a traditional buffer state. They don't want control over North Korea, they want it squarely in between them and South Korea.
The last thing they want is a land border with South Korea, a country that has a huge US military presence. Or, I suppose, for the IST world...a country that has an IST embassy. Granted, in the IST context where major inter-state conflict already exists, the whole buffer state logic may or may not apply. The angry proverbial feline might be out of the proverbial bag. I don't know. I'm just saying.
It is worth noting that Chinese popular nationalism and such is a very real thing, but sentiment has not generally been hugely expansionist or jingoistic. The Chinese thing is to fervently defend territory that they already have past claims to, not to go around making new claims on other people's turf.
A lot of analysts figure that China actually subscribes to what was originally a Western-created norm - that of territorial sovereignty. They just take it really really seriously now. Mostly because they're all pissed off about their sovereignty having being violated in the past. It's the whole national pride thing, the hundred years of humiliation thing.
I've got a picture saved somewhere. It's of a Chinese protester in 2008, holding a sign reading something like "Strongly Protest The Sino-French War of 1884". This was when Chinese folks were angry about the Beijing Olympics torch relay being disrupted in Paris. But the fact that protesters in China start comparing that to a brief war that happened almost 130 years ago...
What I'm saying is, China's not expansionist. It's just interested in defending itself to the degree that it can become paranoid and belligerent. This doesn't mean a scenario where China goes around making land grabs is impossible. That would happen in war; the US didn't roll into Japan because they had a major hankering to permanently keep some Asian real-estate. But any future-fictional Chinese war scenario has to properly encapsulate this whole feeling of intense victimisation on the part of Chinese nationalists, and the sense that they are the wronged party.
The existing IST material does set that stage, and the idea of a stand-off over Hong Kong plays firmly to that. I'm not questioning anything that's being discussed, I'm just raising the point that it needs to be properly characterised.
On the subject of Chinese supers...I'm also thinking of the Chinese logic behind that. The real-world maxim that's thrown around behind Chinese military reform and such is "Strong country, strong military", or something like that (my translation skills are iffy; I barely passed Mandarin). The key thing is that it isn't just hard-headed strategic military calculus going on here. China pursues capabilities also as a national pride thing. The whole space programme thing is a pretty big case in point.
In fact, from a pure security perspective, a lot of analysts think China's real-world efforts don't always make sense. Especially when it breeds the classic security dilemma of worrying the hell out of China's neighbours. But it's not about pure military stuff, it's about national pride.
That train of thought probably applies equally to the IST world. Sure, there's probably some folks in Beijing who are looking for crazy world-shattering WMDs to killificate all their enemies...but there's probably a ton of folks pushing the superhuman development programme who genuinely do think, well, hey, an awesome country like ours needs awesome domestic superheroes.
It's been a while since I read the original IST book, but my thought was always, well, they just want their own IST. Because, y'know, that's pretty much how China rolls. Gotta get some of that awesome stealth fighter action, man. Jeez, we need our own aircraft carrier. It doesn't particularly matter if those capabilities make sense for the country to have, it's not a matter of using it, it's a matter of having it.
Oh, I'm not saying China shouldn't be an antagonist in a campaign setting - hardly that. But if there is all-out war...a good fictional war needs to be one where the motives and characterisations of both sides are equally compelling. Everyone thinks they're the good guy, after all. The book is IST, certainly, but I'd ideally love to see a conflict depicted where player characters could very well play a squad of superhumans - on the Chinese side.
I admit, I don't know the IST material very well. It's been a while since I read the book. And I certainly haven't read GURPS Y2K. I hope my comments make sense, such as they are.
-- Acyl
The last thing they want is a land border with South Korea, a country that has a huge US military presence. Or, I suppose, for the IST world...a country that has an IST embassy. Granted, in the IST context where major inter-state conflict already exists, the whole buffer state logic may or may not apply. The angry proverbial feline might be out of the proverbial bag. I don't know. I'm just saying.
It is worth noting that Chinese popular nationalism and such is a very real thing, but sentiment has not generally been hugely expansionist or jingoistic. The Chinese thing is to fervently defend territory that they already have past claims to, not to go around making new claims on other people's turf.
A lot of analysts figure that China actually subscribes to what was originally a Western-created norm - that of territorial sovereignty. They just take it really really seriously now. Mostly because they're all pissed off about their sovereignty having being violated in the past. It's the whole national pride thing, the hundred years of humiliation thing.
I've got a picture saved somewhere. It's of a Chinese protester in 2008, holding a sign reading something like "Strongly Protest The Sino-French War of 1884". This was when Chinese folks were angry about the Beijing Olympics torch relay being disrupted in Paris. But the fact that protesters in China start comparing that to a brief war that happened almost 130 years ago...
What I'm saying is, China's not expansionist. It's just interested in defending itself to the degree that it can become paranoid and belligerent. This doesn't mean a scenario where China goes around making land grabs is impossible. That would happen in war; the US didn't roll into Japan because they had a major hankering to permanently keep some Asian real-estate. But any future-fictional Chinese war scenario has to properly encapsulate this whole feeling of intense victimisation on the part of Chinese nationalists, and the sense that they are the wronged party.
The existing IST material does set that stage, and the idea of a stand-off over Hong Kong plays firmly to that. I'm not questioning anything that's being discussed, I'm just raising the point that it needs to be properly characterised.
On the subject of Chinese supers...I'm also thinking of the Chinese logic behind that. The real-world maxim that's thrown around behind Chinese military reform and such is "Strong country, strong military", or something like that (my translation skills are iffy; I barely passed Mandarin). The key thing is that it isn't just hard-headed strategic military calculus going on here. China pursues capabilities also as a national pride thing. The whole space programme thing is a pretty big case in point.
In fact, from a pure security perspective, a lot of analysts think China's real-world efforts don't always make sense. Especially when it breeds the classic security dilemma of worrying the hell out of China's neighbours. But it's not about pure military stuff, it's about national pride.
That train of thought probably applies equally to the IST world. Sure, there's probably some folks in Beijing who are looking for crazy world-shattering WMDs to killificate all their enemies...but there's probably a ton of folks pushing the superhuman development programme who genuinely do think, well, hey, an awesome country like ours needs awesome domestic superheroes.
It's been a while since I read the original IST book, but my thought was always, well, they just want their own IST. Because, y'know, that's pretty much how China rolls. Gotta get some of that awesome stealth fighter action, man. Jeez, we need our own aircraft carrier. It doesn't particularly matter if those capabilities make sense for the country to have, it's not a matter of using it, it's a matter of having it.
Oh, I'm not saying China shouldn't be an antagonist in a campaign setting - hardly that. But if there is all-out war...a good fictional war needs to be one where the motives and characterisations of both sides are equally compelling. Everyone thinks they're the good guy, after all. The book is IST, certainly, but I'd ideally love to see a conflict depicted where player characters could very well play a squad of superhumans - on the Chinese side.
I admit, I don't know the IST material very well. It's been a while since I read the book. And I certainly haven't read GURPS Y2K. I hope my comments make sense, such as they are.
-- Acyl