From some things I've read which might not be canon, The Chinese decided to expand much like I talk about in some IRL posts. China won some early victories, and pushed into Anchorage, which lead to a US counter attack which was shattering China's military due to a lot of technological innovations. China fired the nukes to prevent the US from landing on their Mainland (despite the general folly of a land war in Asia beyond this point), figuring they would rather destroy the world than be defeated/conquered/disarmed.
Truth be told, we're not likely to ever know, the only time it will become relevent is if details on past events become nessicary to one of the stoylines.
Truthfully though given the horrible beast of political correctness they are liable to leave it ambigious.
Given the general lack of Chinese armies on US soil as far as we've seen (though there were spies and such) it seems that the US was winning at least in a very superficial sense. Heck, what's left behind also seems to show a general lack of concern over the outcome among the general populance.
Also in Wasteland the war was with The Russians.
Truth be told, we're not likely to ever know, the only time it will become relevent is if details on past events become nessicary to one of the stoylines.
Truthfully though given the horrible beast of political correctness they are liable to leave it ambigious.
Given the general lack of Chinese armies on US soil as far as we've seen (though there were spies and such) it seems that the US was winning at least in a very superficial sense. Heck, what's left behind also seems to show a general lack of concern over the outcome among the general populance.
Also in Wasteland the war was with The Russians.