The Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap/China
China: A General Overview
International Relations and Military Actions
The Russian Federation
The presence of an American CVBG in the port of Hong Kong elicited a nuclear strike by desperate Russian Federation in the closing hours of the initial nuclear conflict. Although the AEGIS defences were able to intercept the bulk of the attack, one warhead managed to strike the carrier at port, resulting in the devastation of the harbour and surrounding cities. Warheads targeted at the carriers escorts out at sea dispersed fallout over the hard hit region of Hong Kong. This act of reckless aggression ended relations between the Peoples Republic of China and what little was left of the Russian Federation. Token airstrikes were carried out in retaliation, although there was little left to bomb in the desolated wastelands of post-nuclear Russia. Troops were deployed against the remnants of Russian ground forces but quickly withdrawn as fallout drifted eastwards form the devastation of Europe. Unable to exact vengeance, the anger of the public was soon directed at the remnants of NATO and their Asian allies, culminating in the invasion and occupation of Japan. Border skirmishes with Russian remnants continued sporadically and Russian refugees attempting to cross the frontier are shot.
Japan
Three months after the bulk of American forces were withdrawn from Japanese military bases in Okinawa, the Chinese launched an pre-emptive and decisive attack on the Japanese archipelago. Soon joined in battle by a unified and Communist-converted Korean People's Republic, it was not long before they overtook the largely-defenceless island nation. Rumours of atrocities were abound with young soldiers eager to settle long-held grudges. Commanders made no effort to limit civilian casualties and employed tactical nuclear weapons without reservations. Together with Korean forces, the Chinese ousted all current Diet members and leaders in Japan, and instead replaced them with military liaisons acting as regional governors; they also created an effective naval blockade around the nation to prevent any ships entering or leaving Japanese waters. Although China and Korea rule Japan, China does so in name only, effectively leaving the Japanese to their own fates. However, the Chinese-Korean military retain their control of the Japanese central government by the wars' end. Chinese troops have been steadily withdrawn and replaced by Korean conscripts notorious for their brutality amongst the populace. Commander of the Chinese occupying forces and Shenyang military region has not made any shows of support to either side of the Party Schism.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong successfully seceded against the thinly-spread Chinese, and though they took heavy hits from the military, they held them off long enough that international sympathies and opinions recognized them as an independent republic. While in this disputed status, Hong Kong declared in favor of NATO-- who then, with United Nations' support, successfully kept Chinese forces through the end of the three-year nuclear war. China has never officially commented on this status, but it was clear by the end of the conflicts that Hong Kong was lost to them. Emboldened by Hong Kong's actions, several Sino-Russo border cities and villages on either side were assimilated into both Russia and China.
alternative GRIMDARK setting for the Hong Kong quarantine zone
In the final hours of the Apocalypse Day, the USS George HW Bush was targeted by a 500 Kiloton blast while docked in Victoria Harbour which destroyed much of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon and with it. The rest of the American battle group was annihilated 20km offshore, generating a tsunami that swept the southern coast and the devastated ground zero. With much of its civil administration on Hong Kong Island destroyed, relief was slow to come to the survivors.
The death toll of the Victoria Harbour blast stood at 980,000 and 1.5 million wounded. Half a million of those were not expected to survive until the next month. Over 2 million were displaced from their homes and were living in refugee camps or had crossed into the mainland.
The Central Government spared no effort in sending aid and assistance to Hong Kong and tried to maintain an air of optimism. Indeed, the fact that China had stood relatively unscathed through the Apocalypse was reason enough to be grateful, but it was a small mercy indeed for what was yet come. Cases of respiratory illness are expected amongst sufferers of radiation poisoning so no one noticed anything was amiss until it was too late. The overcrowded refugee camps were thick with disease which quickly overwhelmed the medical services. It was not until many doctors and relief workerswhich had fallen ill that a new virus was detected.
SARS II was highly contagious and claimed 30% of those infected. With its long incubation period and persistence even in patients who had survived the in symptoms. Doctors tried desperately to find a cure but their efforts came too late. Too many were infected to stop the pandemic and no treatment could stem the losses. Amidst extreme controversy, the Central Government declared Hong Kong to be a Quarantine Zone, sealing the borders and the stricken people within to fend for themselves.
No one has crossed the border for years, but not for the lack of trying. Many have died in the attempt, an ironic reversal of the many years of spent keeping immigrants out of Hong Kong. Nobody has seen the inside since communications were severed although rumours persist that survivors still cling to survival in the concrete jungles of their ruined metropolis.
(Cue grimdark setting of gangs, clans and militias in desolate high rises and abandoned subways)
The Greater Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea
The Greater Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea declared itself brothers-in-spirit-and-arms for the People's Republic of China and remained closely allied until the Great Party Schism occurred. The GDPRK has yet to respond to this latest development.
Domestic cities
The Lianong city cluster, with a population of 33.6 million, was reduced to ashes and concrete devastation by two nuclear warheads, in what was probably the largest casualty in the course of the war. Beijing was hit by one nuclear warhead, and Shanghai, originally a nuclear target, narrowly missed being hit.
These victims of war, all large production and economic centers of China, along with the Japanese invasion stretched Chinese resources thinly. Much of western China is thrown into economic limbo, while eastern China is affected by radiation fallout, famine and miscellaneous problems coming from the smoking crater formerly known as Russia.
Several cities along the Yangtze river report a second outbreak of the bubonic plague, and though these never reach the levels it did during medieval periods, they are never fully treated, either.
The economic crisis in China caused by the loss of foreign markets, oil imports combined with famine and a costly campaign divides the Party Congress between the executive and their supporters and a so-called "liberal socialist" faction. Many purgings,arrests, show trials and executions later, a group of PLA generals stage a coup-detat along with 40% of the army and most of the air force in support of the liberal socialists. The Central Government retains control of the military regions in the center, surrounding hard-hit Shanghai, and most of the nuclear arsenal. The northernmost military region (the best equipped) is undecided and still has many of its units in Japan.