Japan Threatens To Fire On Chinese Fighters, China: There Will Be No Second Shot

[Josquius]

No way would Japan get nukes, they're already paranoid enough about nuclear power plants.

If it came down to all out mass-murdering war though they could do nuke level damage with an attack on the 3 gorges.

Of the two, I think I dislike Japanese more. Can't wait for China to curbstomp them

You hate a land with a long history of man-love and is culturally and legally one of the more LGBT tolerant countries out there over one which until recently put its gays in camps and still stamps down on any attempts at organisation?

[Viking]

Japan is clearly leveraging the fact that not only are their fighters better, their fighters are at least a full generation better than the Chinese ones.

They're nowhere near as good as a flying T-72, though

While it doesn't match the flying T-72 for firepower and armor the F-15 has superior avionics not to mention superior thrust to weight ratio.

[dps]

If Japan and China start trading blows, how do they stack up against one another (assuming at the moment that everyone else remain uninvolved)?

They really can't hurt one another that much.  It's like kids with nerf bats.

To get a better picture of the situation, imagine that one kid has a 20-foot long nerf bat, but it's in such bad condition that if he actually swings it, probably about 3/4 of it falls off, and the other kid has a really really high quality but rather fragile mechanical pencil.

[Jacob]

To get a better picture of the situation, imagine that one kid has a 20-foot long nerf bat, but it's in such bad condition that if he actually swings it, probably about 3/4 of it falls off, and the other kid has a really really high quality but rather fragile mechanical pencil.

This seems to imply that the Japanese and Chinese won't be able to actually kill one another in any numbers, which I doubt to be honest. I mean, even the North Koreans manage to kill South Koreans every so often.

Are there any operational or logistical constraints that prevent either party from projecting force to the islands in question? And once they're there, is there anything that makes it so that they can't actually kill one another?

I get that neither side possesses anything like American capabilities, and that a scenario where either side utterly destroys the other country's infrastructure and ability to wage war is unlikely.

However, if there's some sort of Falklands War like scenario, how do the sides stack up against each other? If both sides send some sort of task force to the area and they start trying to kill each other, who will come out on top?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Russia is supposedly selling backfire bombers to China.

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-buys-tu-22m3-david-cenciotti-the-aviationist-2013-1

The deal struck with Russia includes 36 aircraft

[Martinus]

I would guess Mart dislikes Japan because he views it as a US puppet, and since he dislikes the US because we allow some of our gays to marry (unlike Poland where none of the gays are allowed to marry), he dislikes Japan by extension.

You guess wrong.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Russia is supposedly selling backfire bombers to China.

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-buys-tu-22m3-david-cenciotti-the-aviationist-2013-1

The deal struck with Russia includes 36 aircraft

That's a lot of bombers.

[Caliga]

You guess wrong.

So what's the real reason?  It's weird to hear someone in the West say they favor China over Japan.

[sbr]

You guess wrong.

So what's the real reason?  It's weird to hear someone in the West say they favor China over Japan.

I think I found the problem.

[Caliga]

 

[CountDeMoney]

But Japan is a party to the NNPT, whereas all three of those non-signatory countries have quite 'legally' built nuclear weapons

So I expect much of the effective opposition to such a move would be internal whether from peace activists, anti-nuclear/bomb survivors groups or those mounting legal challenges as Japan would have to break a major treaty obligation, unless it went through the process of withdrawing from the treaty first, something only N.Korea has done.

I read somewhere that Japanese possession of nuclear weaponry is not considered unconstitutional, as the Japanese Supreme Court determined in the late 1960's that a "nuclear deterrent" is defensive in nature and therefore not defined as offensive, particularly in the event that the United States abrogated its treaty responsibilities of providing for Japanese nuclear security. 

[Lettow77]

 Japan isn't culturally ready to have nuclear weapons, or really, it seems to me, even to fight this war.

Being attacked might wake them from it. I hope cooler heads prevail in Beijing.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I read somewhere that Japanese possession of nuclear weaponry is not considered unconstitutional, as the Japanese Supreme Court determined in the late 1960's that a "nuclear deterrent" is defensive in nature and therefore not defined as offensive, particularly in the event that the United States abrogated its treaty responsibilities of providing for Japanese nuclear security.

I think if we abrogated our treaty responsibilities, the whole pacifist constitution we basically forced on them is going out the window.

[CountDeMoney]

I read somewhere that Japanese possession of nuclear weaponry is not considered unconstitutional, as the Japanese Supreme Court determined in the late 1960's that a "nuclear deterrent" is defensive in nature and therefore not defined as offensive, particularly in the event that the United States abrogated its treaty responsibilities of providing for Japanese nuclear security.

I think if we abrogated our treaty responsibilities, the whole pacifist constitution we basically forced on them is going out the window.

That's pretty much what they said.

[Admiral Yi]

It's pretty meaningless anyway.  The Nips already recognize self defense as consistent with their constitution, and only wacko renegade countries fight wars of conquest in this day and age.