I know we are talking about realist school and might makes right, but what about loosing the moral high ground by annexing little vulnerable Mongolia. Is this going to make any problem for Chinese ability to lead or gain trust of other nations?
The same question is there for resolving the SCS dispute with force.
Interesting exchange of points and counter points by both fantasy and martian2, carry on please.
China follows standard military strategy
My prediction of China annexing Mongolia in response to a blockade of Middle Eastern oil supply makes the most sense for the following reasons.
1. China will do everything possible to avoid a head-on military clash with the United States. This is standard military strategy. You do not fight your enemy in a frontal assault. You should always try to outflank them.
Also, powerful thermonuclear countries want to avoid a direct military confrontation in the fear that an escalation may eventually lead to an all-out nuclear war, which no one wants. For fifty years during the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the U.S. never fought each other directly. We can expect this common sense behavior to continue between the U.S. and China.
2. We saw China employ a flanking maneuver to defeat the Japanese. The Japanese government held a Chinese fishing boat captain hostage. China demanded his release. The Japanese government refused and kept the Chinese captain imprisoned.
China applied a little pressure by shutting off rare earth metal exports and the Japanese government caved. Those Japanese hadn't even seen China's economic power yet and they released the Chinese captain immediately.
China would have eventually declared all Japanese exports to China as unsanitary/unsafe and excluded all Japanese exports on health grounds, infringement of Chinese patents, or unsafe (e.g. alleged unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles waged by the U.S. NHTSA, which was later dropped on lack of proof; this taught former Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama not to try and push the U.S. out of Futenma base). China has lots of big economic sticks and the Japanese caved after barely getting whacked.
-----
In a recent example, we saw China apply pressure to the Philippines.
a. China declared the Philippines unsafe and canceled all group tours.
b. China declared Filipino bananas unsanitary and quarantined them.
I think at this point, the Filipinos starting caving in. That was too bad. I was waiting for China to go down the list and declare every single Filipino import as unsanitary.
-----
A year ago, in another flanking maneuver, China blocked all Norwegian salmon for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese criminal. Taking its place, Scottish salmon replaced all Norwegian salmon imports. China didn't notice the difference, but Norwegian salmon exporters lost access to the world's second-largest market and they're still upset.
3. Like the Japanese, the American Neo-cons will make a mistake and provoke China. They will detain or stop a ship carrying Iranian oil to China. In response, China will not bleed itself by engaging the U.S. military. China will conduct a flanking movement and declare it is reluctantly annexing Mongolia to "keep the lights on" in China.
Just like the Russian annexation of Georgian territory, the world will grumble and eventually accept Chinese reunification with Mongolia as evidenced by the Qing Dynasty map.
In conclusion, my prediction of a Chinese annexation of Mongolia in response to an U.S. Neo-con provocation is a very reasonable outcome. The Neo-con hope is to humiliate China or draw the PLA Navy into Middle Eastern waters and defeat them there. That is not how China fights. We know China will respond with a flanking movement, such as annexing Mongolia.
