Why was China chosen as America's enemy instead of the Soviet Union?

[Uncanny Moskvich]

First off this is my speculation. I do not believe there was any lore basis justifying the developers using China as America's punching bag instead of the Soviet Union. To answer the question in the title of this thread, we must look at the time period that the original Fallout was released; Sept. of 1997. Just shy of 6 years after the Soviet Union collapsed.

So what does this have to do with China being chosen as America's mortal enemy instead of the USSR? Well on the marketing level, everything. The developers wanted to generate sales in the newly reborn and capitalist Russia. It wouldn't have helped Fallout's marketing cause to portray the USSR as the bad guys and America's mortal enemy in the Fallout universe; especially with the soviet collapse still fresh in Russian minds at the time.

[Raingnome Noir]

Disclaimer, this is just my opinion and not necessarily objective fact, but here goes:.

The only thing the US needs to go on a war footing, is the possibility of another country becoming its equal, it only tolerates subservient nations. China due to its large population, high levels of intelligence and location, has always been a big world player, therefore it is an inevitable enemy of the US.

With the fall of the soviet union, Russia is like other European powers, a fallen empire trying to hold on to its influence and no longer particularly scary, except to its immediate neighbours. China however is a true juggernaut, and has been on a slow but steady rise for the best part of a century, and unlike the US, it has been great before in the distant past.

If you look at films like the original Blade runner, you can see sci-fi authors have often envisioned an influential China, and i think with good reason.

[Sr Humungus]

Newly reborn and capitalist russia? sorry mate, dont know from which cave you were living, but russia collapse for 1 reason and its still up in our days, they lack of resources and with usa and their slaves the EU blocking their commerce with other countries make that happen.

As the other guy said, russia is a fallen empire, and china have all numbers to be the new "enemy", was a good choose to reflect it in the game.

[Arcanix]

Some people need an enemy to exist. It doesnt matter who it is just that its percieved as an enemy. Why we have perpetual wars.

[Wack-A-Mole MLRS]

Major future investment opportunity. Would be nice now or in the future to sell a BILLION copies.

[Phantom]

I mean the timeline did diverge from ours WAY WAY WAY before most of the common lore existed... so the worlds aren't really the same. The FO 'bible' says after WW2 but its wrong, it happened LONG before.

eldritch gods, 4th-7th dimensional beings, immortals, aliens, etc

Because lots of people in our time were able to easily predict China as a rise to a major world threat... Japan beating Russia in 1904 showed the world powers that their traditional power structure was in danger. The effects of WW2 in our time showed China as a rapid growing threat to the established quo.

Not only that everyone does Russia as the bad guys, it was super overdone.

China as the bad guys in this game does have a LOT of deep lore for how they climbed up to be the worlds #2 but lack of oil and resources kept them from being at #1. Manpower and advanced optical tech was a thing in China granting them a bunch of advantages. Which power armour promptly ended.

[ReadyToPlay]

The game picked China, and China did become a world-power adversary in our universe, so the developer totally called it. But then, they had a number of countries to choose from: could've been Saudi Arabia, Cuba, North Korea, or any number of countries deemed unfriendly to the US.

[Vic Evicerator]

It's not just about China - it's about Communism. Harkening back to the 1950s which is supposed to be the vibe that the game captures, Russians/USSR were the bad guys because they were Communists, and all the jingoistic 'rah rah USA' stuff is always hand-in-hand with the Red Scare stuff, which is all over all of the pop culture of the 50s, and so it's specifically the Red Scare aesthetic that permeates the imagery of Fallout. As the OP points out, when the first Fallout game came out the USSR had fallen and was nominally capitalist (or at least not nominally communist), so China was the next logical choice.

It's also forgotten largely nowadays, but we waved swords at China quite a bit back through those times, specifically over them being communists and certain to be the 'next big threat' once the USSR was 'defeated'. There are cases to be made that both Korea and Vietnam were basically just proxy wars with China, and there was still a lot of anti-China talk that would come up in American anti-communist rhetoric. As much as logic can apply to international jingoism, China would be the next logical choice for America's red-hate.

[buttmunch]

As others have said, when the first fallout game was made russia was considered no threat to the US. Having them go to war and nuke us (in game) would have seemed silly at the time. The cold war was over and we "won." Nobody wanted to relive that era and there was no nostalgia for it (yet.) Terrorism involving nukes from the former USSR was the only RL concern there.

China was the only credible future threat for full scale war.

The period between 1990-2001 was an interesting time. Outside of some small scale conflicts the world was rather peaceful. There was a sense that "democracy has won" and the massive wars of the past as well as the threat of MAD were over.

Unfortunately that didn't last...

[PotatoBasket]

The fallout universe timeline and ours splits directly before the cold war (or at the very beginning of it).

So, America and Russia never had that time period; the focus instead stayed with the pre 40s attitudes towards Asians in general and never adopted a political prejudice of Russians.

[nordmeyerx]

Didn't the remake of Red Dawn have the Chinese attacking the United States instead of the Russians?

[Player three]

It's all about the money. The US really doesn't care about a Communist threat. (Communism Religion Racism and transgender children operations are all just ploys to keep the American people angry so they vote for a particular candidate. I guarantee Republicans aren't Racist and Democrats don't want to sexually mutilate their children... there are bad players in every bunch)
All the US cares about is holding on to having the world's most dominant currency GDP and economy. If you think about the space race and arms race in the 60's 70's and 80's, it was all about showing the world who was more technologically advanced. When the Soviet Union fell and the US found that the USSR had some good tech, but not nearly as dominant as the US. In the 90's and 00's the US got complacent with their education system. In other words, China is getting smarter and the US is getting dumber. (Get off of TikTok, China is making you dumber) China works more and produces more for less for the world, not just the US and they have way more people to do the work than the US. China's tech is becoming far superior. China sells the US Tech (cell phones computers etc) the US sells them Soy Beans and coal. (and a few airplanes and cars)
The US put strong tariffs on China which make these products cost more. Did you ever wonder why an Iphone costs more than a Samsung? Its not because it's better. It's because one is made in China, the other Vietnam. (I know not 100% some are made in India and Taiwan)
So in reality, Communism really isn't a treat. Vietnam Cuba and North Korea are also Communist but their economies suck, so they are not really a threat. The US just doesn't want to trade their dollars into Renminbi when dealing with other countries.

[Mooman]

The Fallout world isn't as far removed from the real world as we think.

Enjoy:

https://youtu.be/fi2tU3wgmHk