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Originally Posted by Raellus
I've been tinkering a bit since the box set arrived.
China: ally or adversary of the USSR?
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I have them as a cautious ally of the USSR after the Taiwan Street Crisis of the Mid-Nineties. Basically a "we got a common enemy in the US", after war almost went hot over Taiwan. This might include an actual attack of some sorts on a USN carrier in 1996, putting it out of action for several months, probably USS Independence, but USS Nimitz would hurt more, obviously.
The latter scenario, a near-loss of a carrier, would make the US pivot to Asia at least temporarily and probably end after an attack of retribution by US Navy aircraft and ship/sub launched cruise missiles on major naval installations, e. g. Hudong–Zhonghua Shipbuilding at Shanghai. Zhonghua yards were building amphibious landings ships at the time, so this would set back any build-up in PLAN invasion forces.
After that, cooler heads could prevail, as both sides lick their wounds, but China buys even more hardware from the USSR than it did historically from the Russians. The Chinese, of course, don't want to grow to attached to a resurgent, revisionist USSR, but play along for a year or so. Once the balloon goes up in Europe, China pulls the plug on most forms of cooperation, except economical ties, which remain largely intact despite pressure by Western nations.
It might be an interesting twist that this pressure ultimately could lead to China switching sides. Since it's the USSR that starts the nuclear spiral in 4E, trying to limit NATO breakthroughs in the European, mostly Polish, front, China would immediately step away from any remains of an alliance. Open condemnation would be the only thing to get NATO's bullseye from Beijing, Shanghai and Dalian. A possible economical alliance in 1998 between the West and China might keep parts of the West alive with China delivering food and basic industrial goods.
Of course, this might draw the ire of Moscow, leading to a few nukes flying towards China as well.
One big mystery I haven't solved in that thread of thinking is Hong Kong, though. Would the British handover the city state on 1 July 1997, if the war broke out just before and China has become an obvious ally of the USSR? We know US and Soviet forces clash for the first time in Western Poland (Poznan) on 6 June 1997, but no date is given for the actual invasion of Poland. Personally, I'd reason that Poland can hardly defend itself against the USSR for more than two weeks. So, if the attack came in late May, China has about two weeks to turn its back on the USSR, before the US and other NATO members start attacking Soviet forces and China gets into the cross-hairs as well.