China's Gala Show of Strength
Military Rolls Out Latest Hardware for 60th Anniversary of Revolution
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 1, 2009
BEIJING, Oct. 1 -- China's military brought its latest weaponry to the National Day parade through Tiananmen Square on Thursday, including medium- and long-range missiles and armored vehicles, alongside goose-stepping troops.
President Hu Jintao, standing up in the sunroof of a Chinese-made Red Flag automobile, reviewed the thousands of troops who stood at attention in front of the hotels, government buildings and new shopping plazas along Beijing's Changan Avenue.
Afterward, speaking from the top of the gate to the Forbidden City, Hu dusted off some of the Communist Party's well-worn slogans, reasserting the virtues of "socialism with Chinese characteristics," openness, unity, prosperity, and the continued leadership of the Communist Party.
Thick smog that had blanketed the city Wednesday cleared, and fighter jets, helicopters and China's first midair refueling planes flew over the center of the city.
The missiles and equipment are the latest manifestations of China's more than 10-year-old effort to modernize its military, prompted in part by a confrontation with the United States in 1996 after Washington sent aircraft carriers to protect Taiwan from Chinese missile threats. Ahead of Thursday's parade, U.S. analysts said they were most concerned about infantry combat vehicles, long-range missiles, and missiles that might be aimed at aircraft carriers.
Still, many foreign military analysts anticipated few, if any, surprises Thursday because most of the equipment had been seen at weapons fairs or in satellite photos, including some available through Google, taken during months of rehearsals for the celebration marking the 60th anniversary of the China's Communist Revolution.
"They've had a couple of practice runs, and it seems that most of what will be in the parade we've seen already," said Richard D. Fisher Jr., a senior fellow on Asian military affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. On Thursday, he said, there were "no surprises."
"Much or most of what will be on display will be same or upgraded models or variations of stuff that was on display 10 years ago," said Dennis J. Blasko, an independent analyst who served 23 years in the U.S. Army as a military intelligence officer and foreign area officer specializing in China.
Such assessments did not deter a barrage of Chinese media coverage before the parade. On Wednesday night, Chinese state television featured stories about military formations, female fighter pilots, and rapid-reaction forces that were shown raiding buildings and buses.
The celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party's victory in China's civil war also included scores of synchronized dancing performers and students waving colorful banners and props.
The official New China News Agency said a 200,000-square-foot, three-ton cloth painting titled "This Land Is So Rich and Beautiful" was to be held aloft by 2,009 armed policemen. Music was performed by 1,500 military band members, a 2,100-member adult chorus, a youth chorus of 300 and a 130-member orchestra.
There were 34 large floats from various provinces and regions and one featuring 181 foreigners under the banner "One World." Others paid tribute to the country's space program, industrial technologies and environmental awareness.
But while the demonstrations and display of tanks and other weapons in Tiananmen Square struck a chord among the Chinese, they worried some in the United States.
"The People's Liberation Army is moving from regional power projection to global power projection," said Fisher, who has long warned of against China's military advances. He cited an infantry combat vehicle designed to pop out of a transport plane and logistical-support vehicles. "The message: They're not all tooth. They have plenty of tail to worry us as well," he said.
New Chinese capabilities could undercut the protection the United States offers its allies in the region, he said. He also warned of an amphibious fighting vehicle capable of firing missiles farther than Taiwan's land-bound tanks.
Xiao Gongqin, a historian at Shanghai Normal University, cautioned against misinterpreting the military parade. "It's not like some Westerners think, that China will be expansionist internationally," he said. "Mainly the aim is to increase the Chinese people's confidence. Hu Jintao has emphasized on many occasions that China will adhere to the principles of peaceful diplomacy."
Chas W. Freeman Jr., a veteran diplomat, China expert and former senior Pentagon official, said he did not see a threat to the United States and noted that Chinese military spending is still a fraction of U.S. military spending. Indeed, the Reuters news agency reported Wednesday that two unnamed sources close to the People's Liberation Army said China would reduce its 2.3 million-member army by 700,000, though increases in the air force and navy would offset part of that.
Freeman said the only weapons China has deployed against the United States -- cyberwarfare tools -- were not on display Thursday. "They have no intention of fighting a war in the United States, but we have done a lot of planning about fighting them on their territory," he said. "Their answer has been cyberwarfare."
Freeman did say that Chinese military advances have affected Taiwan. "The Chinese now do have the ability to punish Taiwan so severely that even if the United States intervenes, Taiwan can't win in any sense," he said, adding that the development "has basically brought Taiwan to heel."
Blasko said Chinese officials argue that parading military equipment contributes to transparency and deterrence, although he added that "deterrence and intimidation are two sides of one coin."
But Blasko also cautioned against alarm about China's display. Even if new weapons were in the parade, such as the land-attack cruise missile that analysts would like to know more about, he said, it would say nothing about how many the military has or how well they work.
"What we're seeing here is only equipment," he said. "All we're seeing them do is drive at two or three miles per hour in very neat formations. . . . And the troops marching or flying will have spent five months in preparation for this parade, which means their units will have missed an entire season of field training. But evidently the high command feels this is worth the training loss."
- posted on 10/01/2009
For China, a March of Progress
Anniversary Parade To Stress New Role
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
BEIJING, Sept. 30 -- Advanced weaponry, performers and masses of students, and precision-marching soldiers will roll through Beijing's Tiananmen Square this week to mark the 60th anniversary of the Communist Revolution.
The parade is to be a display of China's growing political and military strength, and preparations have consumed this country's top leadership.
Nearly 200,000 students from Beijing middle and high schools have been rehearsing since early July, and recently some staged dry runs lasting until 3 a.m. Military brigades have been practicing goose-stepping formations on the outskirts of the city. And all week television shows have featured celebrities praising the nation and singing heartfelt songs about the Chinese Communist Party.
Film director Zhang Yimou, whose early movies were banned in China, is helping to choreograph the National Day celebration, as he did the opening ceremony for the 2008 Summer Olympics.
The Thursday parade, the first in 10 years, marks China's continuing rise since the Communist Party shed its strict ideology and started embracing economic reforms in the 1980s. It offers the military, which is in the midst of a long-term modernization program, a chance to show off its latest equipment, including 108 missiles and perhaps a new armored fighting vehicle.
"The key message the Chinese government aims to send to the Chinese people through the parade and display of new weapons is that the Chinese Communist Party has wiped away all the shame the Chinese people suffered over the past 100 years," said Xiao Gongqin, a history professor at Shanghai Normal University.
China's leaders, who gathered Monday to view an epic musical called "Road to Revival," have looked forward to the event with a mixture of apprehension and eagerness. Security forces are on guard against possible disruptions by ethnic Uighurs from the restive western region of Xinjiang, pro-democracy activists or other critics of the ruling party.
The government has taken over hotel rooms facing the main avenue leading through Tiananmen Square and has ordered nearby offices to be emptied by midday Wednesday. It has banned the flying of pigeons, kites or balloons as well as the sale of knives. It has mobilized thousands of extra security troops and will block off streets, forcing most people even in Beijing to watch the parade on television.
This year marks not only the 60th anniversary of the Communist takeover of China but also 20 years since the Tiananmen protests that many analysts predicted would split the party and lead to its downfall. Rather than yielding to that fate, the party has proven flexible and surprisingly adept, clamping down on political foes while offering greater economic freedom.
Whereas the image of a lone protester standing in front of a tank during the bloody June 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen demonstrators symbolized China 20 years ago, a small armored vehicle parked along the Avenue of Heavenly Peace was treated as a curiosity this week, attracting people who posed with it and soldiers in the background.
"After the political turmoil in 1989, our Party summarized historic lessons, followed the instruction from Deng Xiaoping that 'it is time for us to rectify and it will not work if we leave it alone,' " Vice President Xi Jinping, head of the Central Party School and a possible successor to President Hu Jintao, said in a speech this month.
"Looking back 60 years, we can see that during the first 30 years the Communist Party went sideways, especially during Mao's era," said Xiao, the history professor, citing the famine of the early 1960s and stagnation during the Cultural Revolution. But the economic reforms ushered in by Deng led to the country's modernization, he said, and the party's message is that "overall the party brought good to the Chinese people."
Some businesses were trying to make even more good from the holiday this week. The luxury Shin Kong department store, for example, advertised "special offers" on CDs of post-1980s "red songs," National Day souvenirs, and goods from the "share happiness" food court.
Still, many of the people at Tiananmen Square on Tuesday night seemed to have gotten the government's message.
"When I see these things, it seems obvious that China's strength has been enhanced," said clothing wholesaler Han Tianshun, 38, who was squatting on the sidewalk near the square with his wife, Qin Ruiying, and their 2-year-old son.
Qin, 37, said that this was her first trip to Beijing and that it had been made easier by a new fast train service, which cut the travel time from heir home in Anyang, Henan province, from eight hours to three. "Times have changed," she said. "I can't imagine the kind of new changes that will happen over the next few years."
Nearby, Wang Cuirong, 66, sat in her wheelchair beaming at two of her grandchildren hamming it up for a photo their parents were taking with the gate of the Forbidden City in the background. Wang said she marched carrying flowers and chanting "Long live Chairman Mao" in the 10th anniversary parade in 1959. This year she had come more than three miles in her wheelchair to get a glimpse of the square.
She said she would watch on television Thursday. What would make her particularly happy, she said, was knowing that one of her other grandchildren would be in the parade.
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