Why no China?

[kalos72]

Has anyone spent anytime on the Chinese forces?

I find it blaringly obvious that China is totally absent from ANY detailed works.

[Legbreaker]

Well, since the Soviets basically blasted them off the face of the planet with nukes, does it really matter that much? Whatever's left surely can't be all that organised, or in significantly large numbers.
Looking at the timeline info, it would appear China suffered very, very badly and in effect knocked back to the stone age. A radioactive, badly cratered stone age at that.

[kalos72]

Is there a list of China nuke targets?

They had like 1 million troops back then I think...I doubt they get nuked that badly.

[Legbreaker]

No list anywhere in the books.

In the West, they are used sparingly at first, and for the first week are used only against troop concentrations no further than 50 kilometres from the Soviet border. In the Far East, however, they are used on a massive scale. Chinese mechanized columns are vaporized, caught in the open on the roads in imagined pursuit. Strike aircraft deliver warheads on the northern Chinese population and industrial centres still in Chinese hands. The Chinese response is immediate, but Soviet forward troop units are dispersed and well prepared. Ballistic missile attacks on Soviet population centres are frustrated by an active and efficient ABM system, and the Soviet Air Defence Command massacres the handful of Chinese bombers that attempted low-level penetration raids. Within a week, the Chinese riposte is spent, but Soviet attacks continue. The Chinese communication and transportation system, already stretched to the breaking point, disintegrates. The roads are choked with refugees fleeing from the remaining cities, all of them potential targets. China begins the rapid slide into anarchy and civil disorder.

Note that all starts on the 9th of July 1997 and we hear nothing more about China in the timeline. The implication is China's war is over for all practical purposes.
We do see in the Survivors Guide to the UK that "Canton and the port of Hong Kong have been destroyed by small nuclear strikes" - the UK 6th Infantry Division (heavily damaged in the earlier strikes) withdrew there.

[Olefin]

Actually Chinese forces are mentioned a couple of other places - the retreat by the US Army into Korea happened after they had met up with Chinese forces and then were attacked in the same series of nuclear attacks that destroyed the Chinese forces

And the Soviet Army books detail that they are still fighting marauders in the areas they occupied - those marauders are most likely remnant Chinese units which may or may not have some sense of organization left to them - or may be like the Soviet units that fell apart in Europe and are basically just bandits with better weapons

There most likely are Chinese units that are still intact and functional - but completely cut off from any higher command and thus are basically functioning on their own - i.e. in places the Soviets would not have nuked - in that way they may be like the 43rd as described in Last Submarine - still a military unit, still with a functional command structure but not answering to anyone but their commander

[Olefin]

Actually one interesting idea would be if Taiwan had re-invaded to try to establish an area of control based on a surviving small port in an attempt to rebuild control over China or at least part of it - their military would be intact - the biggest question for them would be fuel supplies