Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "Will China’s Naval Build-Up End US Navy's Hegemony?" video.

With the exceptions of Japan and Australia, nobody in the region wants to have to choose sides between the United States and China. Siding with the loser in this conflict will have grave consequences, and maybe siding with the winner could as well in the short term. The other country that might actively take a side is Russia, but that probably would not be to the benefit of the United States.
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I don't think the Chinese care about having the highest number. What they care about is having enough assets to do the job, whatever that number turns out to be.
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@joetheperformer I don't think anyone is suggesting that the U.S. is less competent that the Chinese. What's questionable is how much American experience against minuscule naval adversaries constitutes a significant advantage. The U.S. is more experienced, but we haven't faced a naval peer since World War II, so the experience is not as valuable as it would be had the current generation of sailors been fighting another naval peer power. Until now there hasn't been another naval peer power. The Chinese haven't fought anyone—advantage USN. US naval assets are designed to operate and dominate globally, whereas Chinese assets are purpose-built to drive the USN out of the Western Pacific. Time probably favors China on this, but that depends on a lot of variables, and it may prove not to be the case. China's biggest advantage will probably be proximity, which will allow them to harness continental assets for naval engagements to a degree that the United States will not be able to. China also has a substantial manufacturing edge should the conflict last long enough for replacement to matter. The United States has an advantage in the fact that while China's maritime trade could be blocked if the USN is not knocked out of the game, the U.S. would be virtually impossible to blockade no matter how big the PLAN gets. China wouldn't be choked off completely—a lot of key resources could be brought in overland from Russia and Central Asia—but it would definitely slow things down. As for alliances, on the surface it looks like the U.S. has an advantage, and that may well be the case. Right now Japan and Australia seem like pretty solid U.S. allies. South Korea probably would try to stay out of this. Their involvement runs a serious risk of invasion, and their government swings back and forth regarding relations between themselves and China from election to election. If China can maintain their relationship with Russia, then that would pretty much compensate for the U.S.' Pacific alliances, assuming the same degree of participation. Russia has a strong incentive to make sure the United States doesn't win. Though, from a stab-in-the-back diplomacy perspective, they actually benefit the most by encouraging the conflict to go on as long as possible, draining resources from both superpowers and raising their respective position in the world power hierarchy. Whether or not their friendship with China turns out to be genuine won't be known until the relationship is tested.
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@TheBucketSkill You are definitely at risk of underestimating your opponent.
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@Meinan4370 China is keenly aware of Japan's mistakes. I wouldn't count on them to make the same ones.
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@iandavidvillaloboswong5180 Chinese training has not been as rigorous as American training, partly because U.S. personnel are more familiar with their equipment because of the rapid advances in, and relative newness of, the Chinese fleet assets. This is less the case now than it was a decade ago and it will be less the case in ten years than it is now.
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@silverhawkscape2677 That Pyrrhicc Victory made China a world power. The U.S. didn't take China seriously before that, they took China very seriously after that, even through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
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@silverhawkscape2677 I'll concede. I think that, upon further reflection, that the term "world player" is more accurate than "world power" during this period. Although I think you're being overly dismissive of China's position during the fifties and sixties, and while American trade played a sizable role in China's return to great power status, it was China that made China a great power again, not the United States.
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@jkc3738 Japan may very well, as probably would Australia. The rest of East Asia would probably think twice, it would certainly be a risky move, and the rest of the world wouldn't matter.
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@jkc3738 I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. Maybe you are suggesting that the United States won't risk war with China because they haven't done so with Russia yet? If so I hope you're right. I really don't want to see a war with China. If I'm misunderstanding you please let me know.
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@pinky8167 Do you think this would be a fight fought in the middle of the ocean? Because, I don't think anybody else does.
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@pinky8167 "So, middle of the ocean, not really, but just off the coasts? Yes. " That was my point. China's not going to fight where it can't take advantage of continental assets. I agree with you about the disadvantage China bears regarding the blockading of China through the straits of Malacca, and to a lesser extent at the straits of Hormuz. However, China is not as dependent on these routes as they used to be for resources, and in the future this will be even more the case. Also, China is not as dependent on imports of resources as they once were. China can feed itself if they go back to a rice and vegetables diet. That would undoubtedly be unpopular, but not as unpopular as giving up on the reunification of the country. Fuel is available by rail and by pipeline from Russia and Iran, though this would be in lesser quantities, it probably would be sufficient. Mineral resources can be obtained from central Asia or from within China itself. I don't think that the outcome of a war between the U.S. and China is obvious, and I don't think it's in either country's interest to engage in a real world test. Even winning such a war would be extremely costly, and in the case of an American victory, probably temporary, as China's ambition to reunify and their undoubted view of a loss as a return to the century of humiliation would cause them to lick their wounds and start preparing for a rematch.
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The greatest American hardware advantage is in the quantity of combat aircraft.
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@altrabodyltd7328 I don't know that tonnage is the best measure of a navy's effectiveness. Of course, I don't think raw number of ships is either. What the ships can do and whether or not they can protect themselves are the measures by which I think a navy should be measured, specifically in regard to the likely field of battle.
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