Quote:Mark Skarr wrote:Nearby countries that might align with China would include Burma/Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. I don't think the state of politics for those countries has been well-fleshed out in canon, but all of those at some point in real-world modern history have had military/communist governments. These are the Asian countries that have governments ideologically similar to China in how they run their countries...and more to the point, these are countries most likely to strongly resent the UN status quo, the Edicts and the IST system.
How deep into Asia does China go? Do any of their neighbors ally with them (Hey, Acyl, any idea if anyone in that area, other than NK would be on that bandwagon)? Do any of them resist exceptionally violently. Are any of them likely to use nukes (keeping in mind the IST world, and not our world.)? Do any of them put up token resistance and let China roll over them?
I'd suggested Vietnam as a potential adversary to China in a war - but it's one of those things that could go either way, it depends on how history's worked out in the IST world. In the real world, China's had a brief war with Vietnam, and Cambodia's gone to war with Vietnam, Laos has cut trade ties with China because Vietnam asked them to...this all happened in the 70s, during the Cold War. Yes, they're all Communist countries. These things happen. Mostly because they're similar, not different.
As a side note, China has good relations with its neighbours on its western borders, like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but I don't know enough about Central Asian/Middle East politics to gauge where those countries might jump in IST.
Regarding countries that would resist really strongly, and are incredibly ideologically different from Chinese Communism - besides the obvious answers of South Korea and Japan, that'd be Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. These are the countries that made various security pacts in the Cold War era, so that gives you an idea of where they stand.
For countries that might be walkovers - Bhutan, Brunei and the Philippines. I'd say they'd all certainly want to resist any invasion, but wouldn't have their own capability to do so, unless IST is drastically different from the real world in that regard. The Philippine Navy's flagship in the real world is a WWII-era destroyer. This is not due to sentimental reasons. The Philippines would probably try to fight, it's just a question of how well they'd do. As noted in Bob's 1990s timeline, the UN has bumped up forces stationed in the Philippines - I always read that as necessary, because they couldn't do it themselves.
The Philippines has the population size to have a good number of native supers, though.
Brunei is a really small country in terms of population, and would be ill-pressed to resist militarily; they'd likely try to deal themselves out of any probable regional conflict. Bhutan isn't so small, but it's pretty much a really relaxed and laid back sort of place...with not much military to speak of. That said, Brunei is rich, so they might have bought themselves some nice toys in an IST context. That's the case in my own supers RP campaign setting; Brunei fields a powerful Royal-sponsored tech hero.
Papua New Guinea is in a similar position, though I'd doubt conflict would spread so far. Timor-Leste likewise, though Timor-Leste might not exist (or not yet exist) in IST; in the real world, it officially gained independence from Indonesia in 2002. If it does exist, then Timor-Leste probably has a larger-than-normal IST team stationed there (I think the real-world UN peacekeeping mission only fully ended in late 2012), with work in progress towards the establishment of a permanent IST embassy.
As a side note, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines have a long real-world tradition of being considered US allies, and host US military bases. In an IST setting, they'd probably - similarly - be stronger supporters of the IST system and embassies than Indonesia and Malaysia; the latter two are countries that are more...mm, keen on going it on their own? More sensitive about foreign interference?
I've not really discussed the South Asian countries like India, Nepal and so on. But India's certain to have a lot of nukes to throw around, and certainly has wary regional rivalry with China. I can't recall if Pakistan and Bangladesh exist in IST; it's possible that India never split up in IST, though I'd assume for the sake of simplicity that they do. But my area is East Asian politics, I don't honestly know much about South Asia proper.
...
One question I don't think has been addressed is Taiwan. Taiwan does exist in IST - it's mentioned in Bob's timelines. Military-wise, Taiwan itself is certainly going to be as much a war front as Hong Kong...but I'm interested in the political implications. In the real world, the question of Taiwan just flat out declaring themselves their own country or making stronger claims to being the legitimate representative of China has always been a contentious issue even in domestic Taiwanese politics.
But with China going full-on flying-mammal-waste pariah rogue state in IST, that movement is probably a lot stronger in IST. It's quite possible that by the 2000s in IST-world, Taiwan is recognised as a sovereign country by the UN, and they've regained their place in the General Assembly - with occasional talk of also returning them the China seat in the Security Council.
Or even if the above hasn't happened, there'd probably be at least some serious talk about making it happen, which may be useful as yet another trigger to drive nationalists in China absolutely crazy.
I'll drop a post in the release thread - thanks for the reminder, Mark. Appreciated.
-- Acyl