Strike at or better near Peking.  Hold the Imperial City at risk.  When the people see what catastrophe their leadership has brought upon them, the Gong Fei dynasty will be overthrown like every dynasty in Chinese history.  People say Obama (or Bush or anybody) would be impeached or lynched for not responding to an AQ nuke attack.  What do you think they'd do in China?  As necessary, similar demonstration shots to other major centers, Shanghai, Pudong, Sichuan, Canton, HK, etc.

 

As for managing the population: 

 

"No more Mr. Nice Guy, down on your knees bitch!" If short term results are helpful.  Remember after all that China is tough to manage under any conditions.  And that the Japanese had no surplus of Mr. Nice Guys. 

 

Or, proxies, which we would never have the skill to manage.  We can barely manage Arabs. 

 

Either way a formal surrender by whatever form of Chinese government existed would be necessary.   One mistake of GWI was not forcing Saddam to surrender in person.  For that matter, of GWII.

Decapitating the CCP is fairly useless, the PLA has been slowly taking over quite a few aspects of Chinese leadership and foreign policy.  It would be wiser to decapitate the PLA leadership, which should allow the PLA to splinter into ethnic centered and local power seeking bands.  The CCP would be left defenseless to the civilian population.

There are 3 ways of delivering strategic nukes from China to the US:

Bomber, of which China has none.

Submarines, where the US navy has 50 odd years experience finding and destroying Russian steel sausages. The Chinese sub might be quieter than they were, but that assumes US technology has stood still. If there has been a ASW voluntary moratorium, then it is the only area. Chinese subs will be destroyed if they so much as prepare for launch.

ICBM's, and their location is known with very, VERY, high precision. They need railroad tracks for their construction - that will reveal them.

 

Surprise - I think not, there are indicators - one of them already mentioned.

 

The ICBM's will be taken out - that is probably the task of the B-2 bomber, possibly backed up by F-22. The chinese ICBM crews will not know what hit them - litteraly.

The beauty of it is that the Chinese strategic nuclear weapon will be taken away from them without resorting to nuclear weapons. The Russian ICBM siloes are probably to tough for bunkerbuster missiles - you can say about the russians what you want, but they are good at using concrete in absurd quantities - without specific knowledges, I wouldn't bet the chinese siloes are proof against missiles, that count the number of rooms of reinforced concrete they pass - before they blow up.

 

Finally - if by chance a few missiles take off, there is the SDI to take the odd man out - out.

 

The retaliation will be done without nukes as well. Dambusting is an old tradition in the west. One cruise missile in the Three Valley Gorge dam - that will send a lot of chinese swimming. That is just one example. Remember China will not be in a position to defend itself.

 

China will not go against the Americans with conventional forces. The Iraq war, where an army, better trained, better equipped and better lead than the Chinese was beaten with a casualty ratio of 1000:1 must give chinese military leader reason to pause. The USA has learned from WW2, where a bankrupt dictatorship caught USA unprepared - not only Pearl Harbor - but generally. That error will not be repeated.

 

USA occupy China? Why? Create enough havoc and civil unrest/civil war will do the rest.

 

To be quite honest: The major concern - if I'm not mistaken - is the coming total economic collaps of China.

 

China is at the mercy of the USA economically. The US would never had let China build up its creditor posistion, if military conflict between the to countries hadn't been impossible - not unlikely - impossible.

 

China will have its Olympics - the panache before curtain:

 

1. Economic growth of the high rate for so long is not stable.

2. The USD has dropped the exchange rate- thus (for the present) halved the chinese fortune in USD bonds.

3. Oil prices has gone through the roof - only about 40% can be explained by the devaluation of the USD. This means the death of Chinese exports: Interest (thus capital recovery) rates below inflation means there is nothing to cover capital expenses in the sales prices of chinese exports, wages are already neglectible in the cost structure, that means there are no possible savings to offset the raising rawmaterial cost - above oil, but other raw materials as well - they have an oil contend in their prices.

The rise in costs has been worsened by cutting prices in halv - and a further halving is certainly within the realm of the possible.

4. China has not been able to dissolve the conflict of interest between farmers and workers. Food prices are raising - though China is generally selfsufficient in food, any raise in living standard is precluded: As farmers aren't paid for their work, the government can't allow that, because it would mean higher food prices - which the workers can't pay, as they for practical purposes aren't paid. Were they paid, chinese product wouldn't be competitive. So development of a home market is not possible.

 

Let sum it up: China a country with a glorious past - and no future.

The main concern: A new workers revolution and civil will come as hunger starts gnawking. But the war will be chinese against chinese.