Twenty Four Million New Socialist Men = War

A silly webzine posts some serious news:

A new study released Monday by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found that more than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age are likely to find themselves unable to find women to marry come 2020. The reason? There just aren’t enough females to go around, because Chinese mothers often abort their baby girls.

This raises a question what do you do with 24 million excess New Socialist Men?

I was going to suggest that Democratic party should import ’em all as a last-ditch effort to avoid getting clobbered in the 2010 midterms, but even that might not work — these poor bastards have probably already had more Marxism and central economic planning than they’d be willing to vote for.

Unfortunately, the most likely end for these millions of surplus males is as fodder in a war. It’s the traditional way for totalitarian thugocracies to deal with this sort of problem, and China’s got no shortage of targets. The Sino-Indian war of 1962 did not actually resolve the disputes over Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, the ensuing diplomacy has been inconclusive and tensions are increasing. The Ussuri River dispute with the Russians has been resolved, on paper, but it is unlikely the Chinese have forgotten that they have historical claims to oil-rich Sakhalin Island. And then of course there is always Taiwan.

The effects of the Great Recession we’re now undergoing amplify the likelihood of war. The export-led Chinese economy is vulnerable to demand fluctuations in its major trade partners, especially the U.S., and is already being pretty seriously hammered by the collapse in world trade volumes. It’s hard to tell just how seriously because Chinese statistics are notoriously opaque and subject to political manipulation, but you know the numbers can’t be good when Chinese government spokesmen start muttering that Peking may stop buying Treasury bonds.

If the U.S. slides into a double-dip recession, it is entirely possible the Chinese economy could crash with it, creating a pressing need for just the sort of distraction a war of conquest provides. Under that scenario, the war could begin as soon as 2011. Even if the U.S. recovers, it’s hard to see how the war can be delayed beyond 2020 or so without creating an unacceptable risk to internal stability. The longer Peking waits, the more likely it is that those excess males will start some serious aggro inside Chinese borders.

The only good news is that the Chinese military is basically incapable of operating anywhere it can’t walk to. They have negligible airlift capability. All their sealift capability is short-range, designed for a surge invasion of Taiwan and probably not adequate even for that. The Chinese Navy’s survival odds against American air and submarine assets would be grim. And the roads crossing China’s borders are inadequate for large troop movements (one reason the Sino-Indian war fizzled out is that it was a logistical nightmare for both sides).

Nevertheless, some major war within the next ten years seems almost certain. Because even if the Chinese government were composed of angels, I don”t think there’s any historical instance of coping with an excess of unmarriageable males that large without a war.

93 comments

  1. First, your basic premise that an excess of males in one country inevitably leads to war is silly. There’s always women from other countries, dating, prostitution, a multitude of market solutions. :) Second, people have been trying to build China up as a bogeyman to replace the USSR for decades, for shoddy reasons and hence with superficial arguments. I told my ROTC buddy who was making just such a case in the 90s that the real threat to world peace back then was Israel, I still believe that. As you note near the end, China is a paper tiger, plus large-scale war is largely an artifact of the past. When was the last time a world economic power took on another one? Not since WWII 65 years ago. We’ve moved on and idiotic tariff wars are how we indulge in such nationalist stupidity today, though thankfully even that is not so bad anymore.

  2. I’m certainly not trying to build up the Chinese as a bogeyman. Lacking a blue-water Navy, the only way they could seriously damage the U.S. is to throw nukes at us. They could mount a major land war against India or Russia, though, and I think all those excess males makes it near-inevitable that they will.

  3. I wonder if young males in some Islamic countries face the same situation because a percentage of wealthy men take multiple wives, leaving none for others. Perhaps being married would stop a lot of men from becoming terrorists, if there were enough women to go around.

    1. >I wonder if young males in some Islamic countries face the same situation because a percentage of wealthy men take multiple wives, leaving none for others.

      To some extent, and this has been identified as a significant background factor in Islamic terrorism by more than one analyst. Unfortunately for the theory, rates of polygamy don’t correlate very well with incidence of terrorism. Notably, the Islamic areas of sub-Saharan Africa and Indonesia have high incidence of polygamy (in Senegal, for example, 47% of marriages are polygamous) but don’t export terrorists; on the other hand, Palestine generates them by the truckload while having a lower incidence of polygamy (less than 4%).

  4. 24 million, single, frusturated young men might not equal war, but it will probably equal something big (war, massive immigration, revolution. . .). There have been lots of periods in history where there were a lot more women than men, usually right after wars. I’m not sure there have been a lot of periods where men significantly outnumbered women.

  5. How about reverse polygamy?

    How about reintroduction of the eunuch class? (Willing to undergo an itsy-bitsy surgery, we give you a pension for life)

    How about a sly marketing campain involving a french clothing/perfume company and three or four Shanghaiwood hunks to convince 24 million women of the world that Chinese young men are irresistible lovers and turn into great fathers and stable providers?

  6. OT1H, 24M is a large absolute number. OTOH, it’s a small fraction of China’s population: about 2%.

    Starting a major war would endanger the comforts of all the other men. China is not a militaristic culture, historically. (Yes, I know, gross generalization, but still, China differs substantially from Japan, or Arabia, or Europe in this respect.) Note that in the last few decades, China has substantially reduced the size of its armed forces, at least in manpower.

    My personal expectation is that the “surplus” males will become an increasing force for social disruption within China.

    Also consider that the majority of these men are only sons. Their parents will object, strenuously, to their only offspring being used for cannon fodder.

    More likely, China will import women from even poorer countries to fill the gap.

    Re polygamy: there are two indices to look at: the polygamy rate and the population growth rate. In a fast growing population, polygamy is sustainable because men tend to marry younger women. BTW, I see polygamy declining precipitously in the Middle East. I saw a family tree of the House of Saud a while ago. The old princes were polygamous; the younger ones, not. Very few of the princes born after 1960 had multiple wives.

    1. >My personal expectation is that the “surplus” males will become an increasing force for social disruption within China.

      I think the Chinese government’s expectation matches yours. Which is the problem — under those circumstances, why not try military adventurism?

      >More likely, China will import women from even poorer countries to fill the gap.

      They’d need about 25 million women to do that. Where are they going to come from? Not India, which has a (less severe) male excess problem. Not Japan or Russia, the marriageable-age population of both those countries is shrinking. Not Korea — 25M is fairly close to the entire female population of the Korean peninsula. Most of the countries poorer than China are much smaller; Indonesia is the largest plausible candidate source I can think of, and fully one in five Indonesian women would have to move.

  7. I don’t think the “demographic theory of war” really applies. That a youth bulge leads to war and unrest is caused by the lack of opportunities second, third and so forth, sons get compared to first sons. These Chinese boys however are single sons, spoiled rotten mother’s boys, who will have ample economic opportunities. If they cause trouble it will be for China when it tries to cart them of to the front…
    China might have to loosen it’s mores a bit so that all those boys get laid, but that’s a solvable problem.

    China will get involved in conflicts in the 21st century, that is certain. China might not have the capability to project it’s power far beyond its borders at the moment, but don’t expect taht to reamin like this. They’re currently building something like an entire EU’s worth of infrastructure every 10 years or so. Their production capability is huge, and they’re expected to launch their first aircraft carriers somewhere towards the middle of this decade. So it’s more likely that China’s involvement in the military conflict will look quite similar to that of the US, basically playing policeman worldwide. But they could be a lot more effective at it, as they’re not hampered by our queasiness.

    My prediction: China will be on our (the West’s) side, doing our dirty work…

  8. I’ve basically been saying this since HK reverted back to the Chinese and they decided to continue their anti-freedom doctrine within a quasi-capitalistic framework. The thinking they could manage the whole thing was the ultimate hubris. The moment the current generation figures out that they won’t live better than their parents there will be a revolution. Sadly, the Communist party has repeatedly demonstrated it will do ANYTHING to stay in power regardless of the consequences. Unless there is a successful freedom revolution within China, China will start a great war and then there goes the neighborhood. N Korea anyone? Honestly I have not understood what any of these companies have been thinking investing in capital intensive businesses in China when they are near certain of losing them. Oh well… caveat emptor. Meanwhile, the Google situation in China is proving to be interesting…

  9. You don’t think there’s any historical instance of coping with an excess of unmarriageable males that large without a war, but what are the instances of coping with it with a war?

    What I mean is, when has this happened before? Are there actually any previous cases or is this first of a kind?

  10. Afaik, there are already a lot of Chinese people drifting quietly into Siberia. I would assume that a lot of those young men will go west and north.

    In re terrorists: I’ve heard that they generally look very normal: decent education and income, not depressed. Anyone know if they’re likely to be married?

  11. I don’t believe that the chinese will be willing to take the casualties assocciated with a major war…. Chinese men of military age are both only children and only grandchildren, and traditionally the chineses have been even more anti-military than American hippies. So i don’t see them making human wave assualts. Instead I forsee 24 million guys consuming a lot of porn and making stupid fart jokes.

  12. The analysis is interesting, albeit not new.
    I think we will see many more women “imported” in China from abroad. Not from a single place, obviously, but from many.
    I would not rule out a fair share of them we will come from Africa. Chinese men are racists for sure, but chastity is a reason to reconsider your tastes and ideas. I bet someone will criticize this idea, as they say that black women are not attracted by EA men. Sure, but money trump many other things.
    In the same time, the economic problem of the Gulf government will reduce the money available to hire alien workers there (male and female), so many will move to China (as China manpower will reduce). These mainly come from Sri Lanka and India, and other M.E. countries. I bet the China’s government would have no qualms to discriminate against males and allow more females to enter. I bet they will siphon women from South America, also.
    This could reduce the demographic problems of China a bit.

    The single son issue is true. People would be very angry if their only son would go in war without good reasons.

    IMHO, the most probable route for a war for China is the defense of its interests in Africa.
    Some of their investments is threatened by guerrilla or terrorism and they send troop to defend the oil wells or the mines or maybe the Chinese workers there. Then they “incentive” many more males to move there to work in remunerative jobs.

  13. I was going to suggest that Democratic party should import ‘em all as a last-ditch effort to avoid getting clobbered in the 2010 midterms,

    Is this like the way the Obama campaign went down in flames in ’08, and McCain is now President?

  14. Nancy Lebovitz: In re terrorists: I’ve heard that they generally look very normal: decent education and income, not depressed. Anyone know if they’re likely to be married?

    I’ll assume you mean suicide bombers; the following doesn’t apply to terrorists in general.

    Palestinian suicide bombers were, but as this strategy was vulnerable to profiling, they no longer are. See Brym and Araj, “Suicide Bombing as Strategy and Interaction: The Case of the Second Intifada”. (The article is from Social Forces, which appears to be peer-reviewed.)

    In the 1990s profilers discovered that suicide bombers in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza tended to be single, socially marginal, unemployed or underemployed men in their mid-20s with a deep attachment to Islamic fundamentalism – just the sort of individuals some people might expect to experience deprivation most keenly and react to it most violently. Israeli authorities subsequently used this information to disrupt suicide operations and prevent individuals matching the profile from entering the country. Insurgent organizations then started recruiting university graduates, married men, people with a secular background, women and youths as suicide bombers.

    Other articles seem to indicate that there’s no one particular profile for suicide bombers; Robert Pape’s Dying to Win states that the most predictive element is the occupation of what’s perceived as a homeland by a democratic state, not the demographics of the group from which the terrorists are drawn.

  15. “They’d need about 25 million women to do that. Where are they going to come from?”

    Africa.

    China is already emphasizing Africa as a trade/investement location. It’s not unerasonable to speculate that a significant number of Chinese men could be encouraged to take expat assignments there to look after Chinese interests, settle and end up marrying African women.

    On the flip side, given China’s growing need for natural resources and Africa’s abundance of them, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Africa is where China ends up deploying it’s military to secure their supply. Assuming they can work out the logistics.

  16. The Chinese are already well aware of the fact that the dispute over Taiwan needs to fade and for the two nations to be merged after a suitable waiting period. The technological and economic impact of doing anything else is too great. Chinese economists and central planners seem to be no-nonsense pragmatists.

  17. This is how we balance our deficit- we sell them back the Chinese girls that are being adopted all over the USA for the last 15 years. Buy low- sell high. Maybe a billion each… and we’ll make up for Wal-Mart buying everything they make.
    Other option-is we start exporting hookers…
    Make love- not war.
    All in jest- but, it’s a thought.

  18. I don’t have a source for this, but I’ve heard that the Chinese government is encouraging men to emigrate to east-africa and marry there. The plan seems to be that within a generartion or two most of east-africa will be part chinese and will look toward China as the center of civilization. Then the governments there will be happy to follow China’s political lead. A huge boost in world influence, without the pain of a war. It depends on Chinese culture dominating native east-african culture[s], but Chinese culture has proved dominant before.

  19. I’ve been giving this some thought for awhile, and the best solution to the problem of excess men within Chinese borders is a “peaceful invasion” of the Russian Far East.

    Basically a “Go North Young Man!” campaign.

    They’ll say “go, make your fortune young pioneers, we won’t stand in your way, you’ll be able to import women after you make it.”

    What’s Russia going to do about it?

    1. >What’s Russia going to do about invasion of the Russian Far East]?

      Not much Russia could do – population declining, army a shambles, transport network poor.

      Trouble with this scenario is, the Russian Far East (and Siberia in general) aren’t worth it. The population density of Siberia is low for a reason; it’s actually too cold for humans to live over almost all that area except the southernmost part of the coastal region, (around Vladivostok) and the southwestern fringes bordering what’s now Kazakhstan. There’s no way to grow enough food, and the winter temperatures kill quickly.

      So, you take over Siberia and what have you got? A whole lotta nothin’. A good place to dump your internal exiles where they’ll be too busy shivering to make trouble, but that’s about it.

  20. Grendelkhan: Is this like the way the Obama campaign went down in flames in ‘08, and McCain is now President?

    Don’t look now, but 2010 is shaping up to be another 1994, with the main difference being that the economy is the driving force.

  21. The Monster: Symbols matter. And for the Beijing mandarins, to accept the fact that another branch of the Han people decided to reject the wonders of the current regime, is intolerable.

    Not to speak of practical issues. Very recently, the Taiwanese judicial system has thrown a former president of Taiwan to jail for life. His crime? Big bribery and corruption. About 99% of the mainland Chinese officials are probably guilty of the same problem. The very idea that Chinese-speaking middle class in Shanghai and Beijing follows these news from Taiwan and wonders “What about our crooks, when do they pay?” must be unnerving for the political overlords.

  22. Too many men pushing for a war + internal instability + inability for the military to meaningfully leave the borders would seem to add up to “civil war” to me.

    Which would also lead me to believe it might take longer than you’d think, because to get to that point the internal strains would have to get large enough that you could no longer keep them out of the military. But it certainly has happened before.

  23. Valtteri Kokkoniemi: ..when has this happened before? Are there actually any previous cases or is this first of a kind?

    The USA had a large surplus of young men in the “old west” after the civil war. They had just lived through six years of war. They had few skills. They went west to find work in the mines and ranches.

    Things didn’t really settle down until more families moved out and the balance was restored

    Marian Kechlibar:

    Also remember that China is not one nation, it is an empire. While it has lasted in various forms some three thousand years, its rulers still fear a breakup.

  24. A country could have a surplus of unmarried, unemployed males without polygamy or a serious imbalance in the population as a whole. A young man in an islamic country (outside the largest cities) with no job and no prospects and no hope would have trouble getting married, too.

    Saddam’s ludicrous tactics in Gulf War 1 look to me like a serious effort to kill off a whole lot of surplus young men. President Bush was either too smart or too squeamish to quite oblige him.

  25. Jay Maynard: Don’t look now, but 2010 is shaping up to be another 1994, with the main difference being that the economy is the driving force.

    I was able to comprehend it when Eric said it; you’re not adding anything. I’m not making any predictions about this year’s elections; I’m mocking Eric for making a ludicrously, disastrously wrong prediction about the 2008 election, especially as he promised to take the “lumps” for doing so.

  26. Eric:

    You should pick up “Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population” by Valerie Hudson and Andrea Den Boer, originally published in 2004. The book is a bit dry in spots, but it’s also chilling in others, particularly in its detailing of female infanticide throughout much of Asia. ..bruce..

  27. I can’t remember the source off-hand, but there is a problem with Chinese men getting wives from other Asian countries. Birth control, even without the Chinese gov’t’s coercion, has resulted in a male surplus in most of them. If I remember right, only the Islamic and Catholic (Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines) don’t have serious imbalances themselves.

  28. I can’t imagine why China would *not* invade Taiwan while Obama is in office. This administration would do nothing worse than use harsh words, flatly delivered. I have no doubt about Obama forcing the US military to stand aside while it happened.

    1. >I can’t imagine why China would *not* invade Taiwan while Obama is in office.

      I’m thinking they don’t have enough sealift capability to do it, nor a big enough navy to cover the sealift if they did. Their problem is that Taiwan knows damn well where the threat axis is and has had 60 years to harden its defenses. The force mix of the ROC Navy looks ideal for interdicting the Straits. All that ship-to-ship missile capability is no good for power projection or supporting onshore operations, but it would play merry hell with the WWII-vintage landing craft the Communists are still using.

    1. >What do you think they’re really up to?

      I don’t know. But I don’t see what going to war with the U.S. would gain them on any level. If they want territory, there are lots weaker opponents their troops can actually march on. They can’t help their economy by hurting ours — quite the reverse, actually, they’re dependent on the export revenues from trading with us. And they don’t have the frickin’ Quran telling them to kill all infidels.

  29. As documented here, http://www.ausairpower.net/region.html, this region is currently in the midst of a massive arms race. Those have a tendency to end “badly”.

    Sadly, I suspect that by 2020 the US will not be able to project meaningful power into that region. Hence, I suspect we’ll be watching events unfold from the sidelines.

  30. Given current trends, the PLA will have vastly greater capabilities in 2020. They will probably be able to achieve complete air dominance over the Taiwan Strait against both the Taiwanese Air Force and US Navy, which will make a seaborne invasion of Taiwan at least feasible.

    1. >They will probably be able to achieve complete air dominance over the Taiwan Strait against both the Taiwanese Air Force and US Navy, which will make a seaborne invasion of Taiwan at least feasible.

      Wouldn’t help them much against anti-ship cruise missiles based on Taiwan itself. If I were the ROC I’d have been investing heavily in that technology for over a decade. Defense in depth – what subs and air can’t take out in mid-straits gets killed when it reaches the Taiwanese littoral. Spotters up and down the cost in hardened bunkers firing lots of Exocet-like missiles — it’d be a slaughter. And relatively inexpensive to prepare, too.

  31. Director: I can’t imagine why China would *not* invade Taiwan while Obama is in office. This administration would do nothing worse than use harsh words, flatly delivered. I have no doubt about Obama forcing the US military to stand aside while it happened.

    It makes you wonder why he bothers killing all those people, since it’s not going to convince you of anything.

  32. It makes you wonder why he bothers killing all those people, since it’s not going to convince you of anything.

    Didn’t you get the memo about all those troubling things Obama ‘inherited’? Nothing is his fault, ever. He his arisen pristine and fresh and articulate once more.

    And not a negro cadence in sight, I’ll have you know.

  33. Dan: Didn’t you get the memo about all those troubling things Obama ‘inherited’?

    Who exactly is sending these imaginary memos that you’re receiving, possibly via tinfoil?

  34. As American have learn in Vietnam war, some country have a different definition of pain threshold. Don’t sell China short on its willingness to sacrifice vast track of people. They did slaughter millions in the collectivization after 1948 and starved to death millions more in the 50’s Great Leap Forward. When you treat your people as mere statistic, loosing 25 million out of 1.2 billion isn’t that big of a deal.

  35. >Wouldn’t help them much against anti-ship cruise missiles based on Taiwan itself. If I were the ROC I’d have been investing heavily in that technology for over a decade. Defense in depth – what subs and air can’t take out in mid-straits gets killed when it reaches the Taiwanese littoral. Spotters up and down the cost in hardened bunkers firing lots of Exocet-like missiles — it’d be a slaughter. And relatively inexpensive to prepare, too.

    At the moment the ROC has exactly two submarines, both fairly old. So far their attempts to procure more have not panned out due to intimidation of potential sellers by the PRC. By 2020 I don’t think those will be a credible threat.

    Should the PLA succeed in achieving air dominance over the Taiwan Strait, the annihilation of the ROC Navy will follow shortly thereafter; the complete vulnerability of surface ships to air attack is a confirmed fact. The PLA can then proceed to destroy any missile launch sites on the Taiwan mainland at leisure with various PGW’s (they have plenty now and are in the process of procuring more). Once this is accomplished, they can proceed with a seaborne invasion. Assuming, of course, the US is unwilling to enter a shooting war, as American Virginia and Seawolf class attack subs can interdict the Strait at will. Either way, America will have to cede air superiority to the PLA.

    The sad fact is that the Western department of defense bureaucracies’ policy regarding the PLA’s massive improvement in capabilities has been denial.

  36. If there’s conflict, I see a war in central Asia as the most likely scenario. Fairly asymmetric, lots of resources, national claims are easy to justify, pesky minorities have an excuse to be oppressed. The strange part is how the rest of the world would react. I’m not sure how the west would respond to a war that would largely consist of radical Muslims as the “non-aggressors”. Russia and Pakistan might react strongly, but I’m not sure how far they’d go.

  37. Heres an idea. Once the PS5 comes out, what thinking man would want to pursue women? Video games slightly beat out taking time out of the day to pursue women. When games get even better, whats the damn point of chasing after a broad?

    Dont worry about the sexless men. In american culture, lots of dudes already prefer games to semi attractive chicks.

    Really, video games and the occasional escort would fix chinas young men problem. I think your overblowing this in terms of chinese aggression.

  38. Seriously. Look at all the sexless men in America.

    “The study, led by urologist Michael Eisenberg of the University of California, San Francisco, will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

    His team’s survey found that 13.9 per cent of men and 8.9 per cent of women said they have never had sex.”

    Considering that one comments thoughts that the 24 million sexless dudes are 2 percent of chinas population. As dudes are about 50 percent of the pop in american, we have a higher percentage of virgins.

    Really. The sexless dudes in china will be like the sexless dudes in america. Wimps, generally untalented, wont have the fortitude and inner strength to lead a minor revolution. They will be the losers. People who dont want to speak out(since they will be laughed at for their inability to attract women)

    Look at south Korea. There is a growing percentage of men who are addicted to the internet. Once china becomes more “modern” That seems the most likely path for those sexless men. A decent life largely spent gaming, with perhaps a few bucks spent on escorts.

    1. >Seriously. Look at all the sexless men in America.

      I read a New Scientist blog entry with more detail on the statistics and I think there is much less here than meets the eye. I did the math; this is 0.3% of the male U.S. population, a cohort that is 1/24th the size of the Chinese strandees in absolute terms and 1/6th the size in relative terms.

      Furthermore, if you read between the lines of the stats on background and sexual orientation, it looks quite likely that the largest group in the U.S. cohort of virgin males is homosexuals in religious denominations that stigmatize this behavior. This too is unlike the Chinese situation, as we can expect that 2% demographic excess to have the normal incidence of heterosexuality (e.g. 96-99%).

      These groups are not really comparable.

  39. There’s a major difference between being a virgin and being unable to find a long term mate. Virginity is a fairly tranistory state for most.

  40. Another alternative (not mutually exclusive with yours) is industrial-scale sex slavery, along the lines of Imperial Japan’s “Comfort Women” in World War II. Since the ChiCom.Gov is clearly willing to engage in all sorts of totalitarian activities to further the Glorious People’s Revolution, I could see them set up a Ministry of Brothels.

  41. Who exactly is sending these imaginary memos that you’re receiving, possibly via tinfoil?

    Oh….I imagine that if you extract your head from the darkest recesses of your rectum, you’ll hear our light-skinned post-racial jesus tell you all about his challenging ‘inheritance’. Regularly. Whenever the imbecile has to face the music of his own affirmative-action incompetence. As if he’s fooling us.

    For those that value such things, it’s really gotta suck to witness a one-term dunce of a “first black” president. The Fresh Prince would have done better by now.

  42. I’m certainly not trying to build up the Chinese as a bogeyman. Lacking a blue-water Navy, the only way they could seriously damage the U.S. is to throw nukes at us. They could mount a major land war against India or Russia, though, and I think all those excess males makes it near-inevitable that they will.

    Erm, no. They could destroy a significant portion of the US Navy.

    Google up “ship-busting missile”.

    https://www.usni.org/forthemedia/ChineseKillWeapon.asp

    Discussed before, here on this very blog, even.

    1. >Erm, no. They could destroy a significant portion of the US Navy.

      Maybe. But I think that’s when we’d find out how effective the U.S.’s sat-killers are. Also, given the range of carrier air and missile cruisers, the US could deploy east of the island and well out of the littoral zone and still do a pretty effective job. Er, and what about F22s flying out of Cha Shan? (As an alternative to committing carrier air, I mean.)

  43. > They could mount a major land war against India or Russia, though, and I think all those excess males makes it near-inevitable that they will.

    I thought you were a believer in MAD. Are you suggesting that two nuclear powers would wage war on each other? Don’t forget, India has nukes too.

    1. >Don’t forget, India has nukes too.

      Yes, but China and India have already fought one border war in which they were careful not to escalate to anything like that level, in 1962. They grounded their air forces and kept their navies in port.

  44. Also, don’t forget that due to the one-child policy, China’s age structure is closer to that of a developed country of today (i.e. older), rather than the historical examples of surplus unmarried men you are probably thinking of as a reference.

  45. >>>> Who exactly is sending these imaginary memos that you’re receiving, possibly via tinfoil?

    Oh….I imagine that if you extract your head from the darkest recesses of your rectum, you’ll hear our light-skinned post-racial jesus tell you all about his challenging ‘inheritance’. Regularly. Whenever the imbecile has to face the music of his own affirmative-action incompetence. As if he’s fooling us.

    For those that value such things, it’s really gotta suck to witness a one-term dunce of a “first black” president. The Fresh Prince would have done better by now.

    I suppose it is historic to be America’s first failed black president.
    And he is the Fresh Prince: The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers!!
    Har!!

  46. >Maybe. But I think that’s when we’d find out how effective the U.S.’s sat-killers are. Also, given the range of carrier air and missile cruisers, the US could deploy east of the island and well out of the littoral zone and still do a pretty effective job. Er, and what about F22s flying out of Cha Shan? (As an alternative to committing carrier air, I mean.)

    It will have to be the F-22’s as the Navy currently does not and will not (in the 2020 time frame) have a fighter capable of achieving air superiority in contested airspace. Unfortunately, only 187 have been funded, and no further will be built, thus making this http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-NOTAM-131109-1.html debacle all too probable.

  47. Really guys, ask yourself this question. If 6 million males suddenly were born in america that had no chance of getting laid, would that significantly increase our chances of war with another country? Would the leaders suddenly think that it would be a good idea to send those unruly men into a war, that has little chance of benefiting America, solely for the sake of removing those men? Or, would the leaders have little sympathy for the sexless men, who cannot attract a mate(or would those men not even be noticesd.Or, even more likely, as crime tech improves and dna tests become cheaper, (perhaps universal in china) each crime commited has a higher chance of being caught, partially negating the “unruly men effect”
    The “unruly” men can simply be locked up. How much damage can they do in china, with its prison system?
    “under those circumstances, why not try military adventurism?” Yeah, i cant think of a single idea why america would not invade russia if we had a lot of restless angry horny dudes. Sounds fantastic.

    “He also represents an estimated 1.1 million American men and 800,000 women aged 25 to 45 who have never had sex.”
    Well, ive read that about 3 percent of men are gay. Even if those men are 11 times more likely to be virgins then heteros, that dosent explain the majority. But really, I do think the number issue is a mootish point. Instead, We should ask ourselves just what type of man cannot attract a mate, due to competation with other men? How dangerous are those guys? What do they do when they cant find sex(They current world is very different then when it was in the 1970’s. Remember people, dont think to the sexless men 500 years ago. Think about the sexless men today)

    Also, what is the social dating situation in china? Is the trend towards serial monogomy? If so, the “long term partner” becomes much less important.

    There are still some large differences, but it seems the trendismore american style dating(off a few google top hits. man, i want more data now. This may become a minor research project of mine)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Gender-based_birthrate_disparity
    Also, it seems that most asian countries have a larger percentage of males then females. IM not sure how significant that is though.

    “and I think all those excess males makes it near-inevitable that they will.”

    Please, give me a few examples in the last century, where an excess of males clearly led to invasion of another country, or massive social stress. The only data youve said srelated, was this”rates of polygamy don’t correlate very well with incidence of terrorism” which though not directly related, slightly weakens your idea that invasion is inevitable.

    Im unsure if my video games subverting male horniness has legitmacy. Im a dude, who talks to many other guys on the internet. It seems a lot of those guys genuinely prefer games to girls, or at least, are frustrated with their efforts with girls, and turn to games. Many dudes their who can date a “4” simply prefer to jack off to porn. The ultra nerds have anime girlfriends.

    –to the guy who brought up the old west. Yeah, I thought of that as an example. However, an extremely large proportion of the old west was male(i dont have any stats, so im really just remembering grade school history textbooksthere was little law enforcement, a “law of the land”

    We have DNA tests now. Harsh punishments since grade school for inflicting violence(explulsion for anything serious) You do realise that the world is very VERY different in nearly every way from the 1850 wild west. Even more so in china.

  48. >> Don’t forget, India has nukes too.

    > Yes, but China and India have already fought one border war in which they were careful not to escalate to anything
    > like that level, in 1962.

    China didn’t test its first nuclear weapon until October 1964.
    India didn’t test its first until May, 1974.

  49. Also during that war, the US and USSR were both supporters of India. Mao didn’t stand a chance, and he knew it. This is why the PLA stopped at their version of the disputed China-India boundary.

  50. >>Erm, no. They could destroy a significant portion of the US Navy.

    > Maybe. But I think that’s when we’d find out how effective the U.S.’s sat-killers are. Also, given the range of carrier
    > air and missile cruisers, the US could deploy east of the island and well out of the littoral zone and still do a pretty
    > effective job.

    Of what?

    According to a U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) report, the Chinese ASBM has range of 2000 km (approximately 1,240 miles) and can reach an aircraft carrier or any other surface ship within 12 minutes at that range.

    > Er, and what about F22s flying out of Cha Shan? (As an alternative to committing carrier air, I mean.)

    Taiwan faces approximately 700 missiles, at least some (and quite possibly the majority) of which are reported to be accurate within 40 meters. See, for example, see John Hill, “Missile Race Heightens Tension Across the Taiwan Strait,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, Vol. 17, No.1 (January 2005), pp 44-45.

    It is likely that only a few ballistic missiles could render the runways at Cha Shan unusable. This accuracy would also allow the PRC to legitimately contemplate ballistic missile attacks against command and control nodes and air defense radars.

    In addition, the PRC is also acquiring the ability to physically destroy Taiwan’s aircraft while they are on the ground or in the hardened ‘cave’ shelters.

    At least two types of bomber-launched, 500 kg warhead land attack cruise missiles (LACMs) are being developed or perhaps have been developed, each with 1,500 km ranges and 10 meter accuracies. See, for example, Wendel l Minnick, “China Tests New Land-Attack Cruise Missile,” Jane’s Missiles & Rockets, 21 September 2004, http://www.janes.com.

    Such missiles could presumably threaten hardened aircraft revetments, including even the cave entrances to Taiwan’s underground fighter shelters inside the mountain at Cha Shan airbase. China’s LACMs could be used to destroy Taiwan’s command and control nodes that would otherwise coordinate and direct the intercept of PRC air attacks, and could be designated to destroy Taiwan’s aircraft and airfields.

    Significantly complicating these problems, moreover, is the threat posed by China’s 100 Harpy anti-radar drones, obtained from Israel in 2001. On this transaction, see Yitzhak Shichor, “The U.S. Factor In Israel’s Military Relations With China,” China Brief, The Jamestown Foundation, Vol. 5, No. 12, 24 May 2005, http://www.jamestown.org/publications.

    These small, subsonic, stealthy, accurate and autonomous flying bombs are designed to destroy or suppress air defense and other radars. Propeller driven, they can loiter over a battlefield for up to two hours at ranges of 400 km from their launch sites. Once a Harpy detects a radar emission it has been programmed to attack, it promptly dives directly at that radar antenna and destroys it with a 32 kilogram explosive warhead. Targeted radars are destroyed if they transmit, or rendered useless if they remained turned off to avoid attack.

  51. What about the economics of China? It’s not the same thing if 24 million workers spend their meager wages on using their few hours of spare time on console games/internet porn or if they are discontent unemployed living in slums and facing starvation or more likely forceful deportation to even less prosperous parts of China.

  52. Well, there’s currently some buzz about sex robots. That would be a peaceful solution to that problem, and would even equilibrate the balance of payments if produced in Japan and USA. Let’s sell 24 million sexbots to China!

    http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Roxxxy-Sexbot-Its-Not-Her-Looks-Its-Her-Personalities-69076.html
    http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/11/do-you-take-this-sexbot.html
    http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/robotics/sexbots-will-give-us-longevity-orgasm

  53. > Yes, but China and India have already fought one border war in which they were careful not to escalate to anything like that level, in 1962. They grounded their air forces and kept their navies in port

    China conducted its first nuclear test in 1964 and Smiling Buddha wasn’t launched until the 70s.

  54. > China conducted its first nuclear test in 1964 and Smiling Buddha wasn’t launched until the 70s.

    Oops, now I see what you mean. But I really doubt a navy would be useful in the area you are talking about.

  55. I still think it’s worth noting that no nuclear state has ever attacked another nuclear state.

  56. Oh my. I have never thought of this.

    1. Porn is ILLEGAL in China, so scratch that as a distraction.
    2. Gaming is restricted to a certain amount of time per day.
    3. The need for cheap manual labour is decreasing (due to economic crisis and with ever-improving, cheaper factory robotics)

  57. Thomas Covello: the USSR and China fought several serious border battles circa 1970.

    ESR: where will China get make-up women? From Indonesia, Philippines, Indochina, Burma, Bangladesh, and Africa. Also, I would expect that non-Han ethnic groups will get screwed, so to speak. (That is, their women will be taken by Han men.) These measures will not cover the whole shortfall, but will take the edge off it. Finally, I’d guess that the male losers will be wimps: “beta” or even “gamma” males. Some will turn to crime, drugs, or booze. The regime will sweep up vagrants and such, conscript them into a “labor service”, and ship them into the remote north and west to build roads and such. Or overseas: see below.

    Mirco, Travis, Daniel Speyer: China is already pushing into Africa. China has close relations with Sudan, provding that “outlaw” regime with arms; I have heard (but cannot confirm) that Chinese troops are on the ground providing security for Sudanese oil production and exports (which mostly go to China). I suspect that there are Chinese technicians and advisers helping Sudan operate its more complex weapons.

    Chinese “peacekeepers” _are_ officially deployed in Sudan, along with PKs from several dozen other countries. There are actually two PKing missions there – an older one for the civil war in the south, and a new one in Darfur. The Chinese are in both. They are also in Congo (the big one), Liberia, and Western Sahara. And Lebanon. And East Timor and Haiti(!) (police only).

    China is also involved with Zimbabwe (buying their exports, supplying arms).

    If China does start to “colonize” east Africa, they may start shipping surplus males there en masse.

    The geopolitical kink in this is that China could come into conflict with India – the LoC would of course pass through the Indian Ocean next to India, and India has historic connections with east Africa. (Also with South Africa: there is Indian diaspora there, and Gandhi’s first activist campaign was there.)

  58. Dan: Oh….I imagine that if you extract your head from the darkest recesses of your rectum, you’ll hear our light-skinned post-racial jesus tell you all about his challenging ‘inheritance’. Regularly. Whenever the imbecile has to face the music of his own affirmative-action incompetence. As if he’s fooling us. For those that value such things, it’s really gotta suck to witness a one-term dunce of a “first black” president. The Fresh Prince would have done better by now.

    Well, you’re certainly saying that he’s black. (Light-skinned! Post-racial! Affirmative action! Fresh Prince!) But apart from vague assurances that Obama is currently blaming the previous administration on a regular and consistent basis, I’m not seeing much here. I’m sure that you can find someone, somewhere, who hasn’t paid attention since February, but the guy has had time to implement his own policies, and I don’t think there’s much controversy about that.

    It’s also pretty cute how my original point–that Obama seems perfectly willing to kill, torture and disappear people with nearly as much enthusiasm as the last guy, and thus accusations of insufficient bloodthirst are of questionable value–has been quietly dropped in favor of an unresolvable muddle about which things, precisely, Obama blames on his predecessor. Apparently his blackness is relevant to this; I’m not quite sure how.

  59. Since the Han are notorious racists, I very much doubt that they will willingly settle for African wives, much less Indonesian, Korean, or what have you. Even within China, Manchurians are not held in as high esteem as the Han, and moving even farther afield, nominally Chinese areas like Tibet or Xinjiang are “colonised” by the Han with little intermarriage or social intercourse.

    There are few options open to them (although the incomperable Mark Steyn suggested China might become “the first gay superpower since Sparta”), and social unrest and social, economic or political implosion is probably what we will have to look out for. Given China has little in the way of “force projection” capabilities, I would bet that a civil war ending up in another of China’s sycle of “warring states” is the most likely outcome, with all that might imply.

    The other thing not mentioned is the longer term consequence, which is an unbalanced demographic profile leading to a population crash and economic withering away (like the EU, Russia, Japan and Canada, but starting in the 2030’s rather than the 2020’s). The long term future looks much brighter for the United States, given they will still have a growing population base (and for political junkies, the bulk of the population growth will be in Red States and among the Hispanic population. Make of that what you will!). Only India will have a large and dynamic population allied to a market capitalist social/political culture, so the second half of the 21rst century will be a very different world for people who lived through the first half (or the last half of the 20th).

    1. >Given China has little in the way of “force projection” capabilities, I would bet that a civil war ending up in another of China’s sycle of “warring states” is the most likely outcome, with all that might imply.

      I agree this is the likely outcome if (a) it turns out the PLA can’t fight a cross-border war, or (b) it tries and fails.

  60. On the subject of China settling the Russian Far East, sounds like a good idea to me.

    Yes, it is bleedin cold in the winter. But, modern technology can handle that so long as the infrastructure is put into place. The Russians have just never established the infrastructure, largely because of the myth of Siberia’s utter desolation.

    Where resources are concerned, Russia’s problem is that she has long mishandled what resources she has. Starting with her people, and continuing on down a very long list. China’s biggest asset is her people, and their willingness to work hard. They worked hard in America, in the face of active hostility, and prospered. Give the Chinese access to Russian Far East resources, and you can bet they’ll exploit them and exploit them effectively.

    I mean, if the Chinese would only give up pork, the Jews would adopt them as the 14th tribe post haste.

    The last figures I’ve seen say that of the RFE’s total population of some 15 million, 3 million are illegal immigrants from China. I expect that by now that number has grown substantially. The Chinese invaded long ago, and in due time they will come to shape the land as Russia continues to disintegrate. Expect a Chinese intervention to prevent the coming chaos in the north from harming them.

    One final note; never assume that people will never do things they haven’t done before.

    1. >But, modern technology can handle that so long as the infrastructure is put into place.

      You don’t get it. Over most of Siberia, you can’t grow food. Yeah, humans can live there (given intensive technological support), but our staple crops can’t. Not even relatively cold-weather-tolerant varieties like winter wheat! That’s why the forests of Siberia are still forests; except along the southernmost edge and some parts of the coastal far east, dense populations utterly depend on food imports.

      If this weren’t true, population pressure would long since have driven farmers into the area and they’d have done what we did to the (formerly coast to coast) American forests — turned ’em into farmland. As it is, every Russian effort to push agricultural settlement into the huge area that’s still subarctic forest (and these efforts have a couple centuries’ history) has failed. Miserably. The only people who can live off this land are scattered small tribes of semi-nomadic hunters.

      The problem, by the way, isn’t the depth of the winters; northern Minnesota gets colder. The problem is that the spring and summer growing seasons are too short and too cold.

  61. Siberia’s forests are being cut down, for the lumber, not because they want more farmland.
    http://www1.american.edu/TED/TAIGA.HTM

    You don’t grow wheat in Canada, either…. oh wait, Canada is a major producer of wheat.

    So its not impossible to grow wheat in Siberia, but the events of the past 50 years haven’t helped.

  62. >I thought you were a believer in MAD. Are you suggesting that two nuclear powers would wage war on each other? Don’t forget, India has nukes too.

    MAD really only works if both sides have enough nukes and reliable delivery systems to seriously damage the other. Only a “lesser” level of deterrence would be in effect between China and India.

    >Also, don’t forget that due to the one-child policy, China’s age structure is closer to that of a developed country of today (i.e. older), rather than the historical examples of surplus unmarried men you are probably thinking of as a reference.

    But the surplus males are mostly younger, which is the problem.

    >btw, those dudes seem fairly contentish, like they have accepted thier lot.

    Maybe most have, or at least nothing has set most of them off, yet.

    >Over most of Siberia, you can’t grow food.

    Actually, there is large areas in Siberia where you could grow enough food, just as there is in Canada and Alaska. Larger areas of Siberia are unsuitable for agriculture than Canada, but Siberia is also larger than Canada and the areas that are suitable are at least as large. Siberia has just never been developed agriculturally because the lack of markets and transportation. I have a fairly substantial background in agriculture, both horticulture and animal ag (esp, dairying).

  63. >>Also, don’t forget that due to the one-child policy, China’s age structure is closer to that of a developed country of today (i.e. older), rather than the historical examples of surplus unmarried men you are probably thinking of as a reference.

    >But the surplus males are mostly younger, which is the problem.

    On further consideration, the fact that China is so hierarchical and especially dominated by the aged, makes the problem worse. The younger males are not only unable to get married, but are mostly shut out of competition for positions of power as well.

  64. Really guys, ask yourself this question. If 6 million males suddenly were born in america that had no chance of getting laid, would that significantly increase our chances of war with another country? Would the leaders suddenly think that it would be a good idea to send those unruly men into a war, that has little chance of benefiting America, solely for the sake of removing those men?

    Maybe not, but the U.S. doesn’t have so much the command and control infrastructure that China has. Furthermore, it’s possible to make an argument from an evolutionary pressures standpoint. Studies have documented an increase in the percentage of male births both during and after a war in the U.S. and Europe. This article includes a brief discussion on the topic. There are various biological and evolutionary explanations for this phenomenon, including increased stress on the part of adult males and the evolutionary pressures to restore equillibirium; however, as the article points out, the phenomenon does remain a curiosity.

  65. The American mid-west was considered a desert until suddenly it wasn’t Siberia is capable of growing much more more than it does, it’s command-centralized economics which makes it fail. Siberia has always had poor infrastructure because the centralized planners considered it worthless, and nobody else is allowed to have other opinions about that. Southern Siberia grew lots of wheat at points in time.

    Besides, we hobble ourselves by limiting our food production to the relative handful of “staple crops” that Northern Europeans happened to bring with them when they started dominating world culture. Human beings aren’t meant to munch grass anyway.

  66. >The only good news is that the Chinese military is basically incapable of operating anywhere it can’t walk to. They have negligible airlift capability. All their sealift capability is short-range, designed for a surge invasion of Taiwan and probably not adequate even for that.

    Sort of like the US in the 1930’s…

  67. Sort of like the US in the 1930’s…

    And then the U.S. fired up its industrial prowess and started producing planes and ships and tanks in record numbers… OTOH, if the Chinese build aircraft the way they build goods for the U.S. market, then either they’ll all fall apart in 3 months, or all the pilots will die of lead poisoning. ;)

  68. >And then the U.S. fired up its industrial prowess and started producing planes and ships and tanks in record numbers… OTOH, if the Chinese build aircraft the way they build goods for the U.S. market, then either they’ll all fall apart in 3 months, or all the pilots will die of lead poisoning. ;)

    Ha. Very Ha. We don’t have a material tech advantage over China any more. Not once they decide to build advanced weapons systems.

    In my opinion China won’t start a major war for the same reason the US would never invade Canada. If they decide another country has something they want they’ll simply buy it. Cheaper that way.

  69. morgan greywofl Says:
    OTOH, if the Chinese build aircraft the way they build goods for the U.S. market

    I’d think it’s probably safer to assume that goods they’re producing to actually use (as opposed to undercut someone elses economy) will probably be made of slightly sterner stuff. Kind of like how mexican beer isn’t actually like Corona and Australian beer isn’t actually like fosters, thats just the piss that is left to get exported.

  70. Sean,

    According to Strategy Page, military jet engines are hard to build right. China’s capabilites are not up to Russia’s yet, much less those of the U.S., France or Britain. China is improving, but they aren’t there yet.

    Yours,
    Tom

  71. Jake Fischer: One can grow wheat in parts of Canada at the same latitudes as Siberia (50N-55N): the Prairies between the large lakes of Manitoba and the Rockies. The same latitude belt east from Manitoba to the Atlantic is wilderness – the unfarmable Canadian shield.

    Russia is farmable at those latitudes, from the Baltic Sea and into SW Siberia (the belt from Chelyabinsk to Novokuznetsk). But further east, not.

    North of 55N, fuggeddaboudit.

    1. >Russia is farmable at those latitudes, from the Baltic Sea and into SW Siberia (the belt from Chelyabinsk to Novokuznetsk). But further east, not.

      The Primorsky Krai area at the southern end of the far eastern coast (around Vladivostok) is also farmable, though comparatively undeveloped. They export grain, soybeans, and potatoes.

  72. JonB: The Fosters sold in the U.S. is made in the U.S. If you want real Australian beer, check the label. Coopers, Tooth Sheaf, and some others are actually shipped here.

  73. An interesting thought. Frankly, I believe that Taiwan remains the most likely adventure on the Chinese chessboard. But if it happens, it will happen sooner rather than later. The current American administration has already demonstrated in Georgia exactly how it will regard near-abroad adventures by our eastern Machiavellis.

    However, there are many other, more Huxleyan approaches the PRC may attempt first. For instance: a ban on female abortions wouldn’t comprise the most egregious violation of human rights in Communist Chinese history. Hell, it wouldn’t even make the top ten list.

    Or perhaps they could spoon even deeper into the Utopian soup. How about a “Handmaid’s Tale” styled breeding program. Concubines aren’t exactly alien to Sino-culture, and I’m sure they could discover a way to dovetail the concept with emergent collectivist needs. Share and share like.

  74. China will not import non-Chinese women, but it has exported one million Chinese to Africa in the last twenty years; presumably mostly men.

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