The United States military and its allies were at a great strategic disadvantage at the start of hostilities with China. When the Cold War ended and the strategic focus shifted to the Arabian Gulf and later the War on Terror, many U.S. Pacific bases were closed and forces concentrated to a relatively small number of key installations in South Korea, mainland Japan, Okinawa and Guam. This alignment suited the 1990s and early 2000s fine as there were no peer competitors in the region, and barring a bit of economic trouble the region was relatively stable. This all changed by the turn of decade with the rise of China as a true peer competitor that had the ability to precisely target fixed US installations with large salvos of precision weapons. The failure of the US military to recognize this fact and disperse its forces (as it had done under threat of nuclear attack during the Cold War) would lead to devastating losses in the first few hours of war and would dictate the course of US strategy throughout it.
The Chinese leadership was very happy over what had transpired over the last few days. The Vietnamese Airforce and Navy were effectively destroyed, leaving its army to mobilize relatively undefended. Most of its generals and politicians had fought as young men in the war against America and had witnessed the death and destruction caused by a sustained bombing campaign and did not wish to repeat it. So while the UN condemned the attack, Vietnamese diplomats were already seeking a peace and way to end "a great misunderstanding of intentions". They hoped it would at least give the Vietnamese Army time to mobilize and dig in, and at best end the conflict all together. One key Chinese enemy was now removed from the board, and they could now deal with the rest.
Large numbers of precision cruise and ballistic missiles were keys to China’s success in this conflict. They could salvo them in large numbers and even in light of recent anti-ballistic missile technology advances they would stand a good chance of success if employed and supported properly. In this case Chinese cyber-forces played a critical support role attacking US, Japanese and Korean systems. Chinese space forces also assisted by engaging US satellites. The cumulative effect was not just many destroyed targets, but a "shock and awe" effect that American forces had not felt ever since the Second World War.
This is a single-sided scenario designed to be played from the Chinese side only with a duration of 6 hours.
You will be scored based on the type of targets you hit. The US carrier in the most valuable target, followed by damaging runways, hardened shelters and then hangars, tarmacs, revetments and open parking spaces in airbases.
You have a number of cyber-attacks you can chose to trigger under the "Special Actions" menu in the "Game" drop down menu. These all have various point costs, so consider them wisely.