A soldier has
one tool and it is a Hammer. His
ambition is to deploy that tool because his entire career has prepared him for
nothing else. The thought that his cause
might lose is of no importance because he at least will not survive
defeat. From that we get preparation for
war that is both mental and physical. In
the cloistered world of the military a documentary like this is almost
believable.
A war between
the USA and China will be a war between the world and China or between the
military capacity of five billion people controlling ninety five percent of the
globe and China’s one billion people.
China has no allies in a war for Chinese hegemony. The casualties would easily surpass that of
WWII.
That same world
will not easily accept China imposing hegemony on Taiwan. That will also entail China building out a
naval fleet surpassing the combined Navies of the USA and the rest of the world
as well. Such a fleet is a Chinese
admiral’s dream and everyone else’s nightmare.
It is also a
throwback to the militaristic horrors of a century ago.
What is needed
is a new dialogue between peoples in which the obsolescence of war is
recognized and actively avoided. We will
still have confrontations of hostile peoples with war no longe able to
significantly resolve anything unless wq89`
US
Is the Enemy, Says Chinese Military Documentary
A documentary film
produced by top personnel in the Chinese military says that the United States
has for decades been attempting to subvert China and bring down the Communist
Party.
The
film, which runs for 92 minutes and was produced by the National Defense
University, first appeared on Chinese video websites in late October, and was
taken down several days later. Titled Silent
Battle, it sounds a somber warning bell against what it says are
American designs to attack the ideology and culture of China’s communist
system, through such nefarious means as “economic infiltration.”
The chief producers of
the film, which was made in June, are two senior generals of the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA): Liu Yazhou, a general and the political commissar of the
PLA’s National Defense University, and Wang Xibin, also a general.
Many of the views in the
documentary are not new inside the hawkish ideological factions of the Chinese
military; but it is unusual for them to be presented in such a public manner.
Analysts said that leftist forces in the Chinese military may be attempting to
put pressure on the Communist Party leadership, to have it adopt more hard-line
policies, or to send a warning signal to liberal intellectuals inside China who
wish to see the Communist Party play less of a central role in Chinese economic
and political life.
Struggle Inevitable
“Conflict and struggle
with the American hegemonic system is inevitable on the path of China’s
national rejuvenation,” the film declared in its opening. “It is a century-long
battle that does not depend on one’s will.”
The documentary argues
that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was China that fell into the
United State’s crosshairs. A grim-faced eagle stares into the camera.
In this view, even
United States attempts to engage with China have the underhanded purpose of
trying to undo the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, something that U.S.
policymakers deny.
The video quotes
President Bill Clinton’s Berlin Wall theory to show America’s purported real
intentions: “I don’t think there is any way that anyone who disagrees with that
in China can hold back that [liberty], just as eventually the Berlin Wall fell.
I just think it’s inevitable.”
In
the United States, this was taken to mean that Clinton was
adopting policies that avoided confrontation with China.
The documentary,
however, takes them as damning evidence of the underhanded U.S. plot.
The Hard-Line
“The people that
produced this documentary are the most representative of the orthodox communist
ideology in the Party,” said Shi Cangshan, an independent analyst of Party
affairs based in Washington, D.C.
He noted that similar
noises had been made in the 1980s during the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign,
another leftist reaction to the forces of economic modernization.
“I don’t think these
views are too representative of those of the central leadership, but more the
people in the military.” Shi said that they may have deliberately leaked the
video in order to publicly pressure the leadership, and at the same time put
some of the more well-known liberal voices in China on notice.
The documentary names
certain newspapers, such as the Southern Metropolis Daily, and individuals,
like He Weifang, as being tools for hostile Western forces. This, Shi said,
indicates that it may have been more about domestic, rather than foreign,
propaganda.
The National Defense
University does not appear to have its own website, so it was not possible to
contact it to verify whether it indeed produced the documentary. The interviews
with senior military personnel, which had not been previously public, and the
official narration, however, left little doubt of its origins.
Online Reaction
Many of the inhabitants
of China’s online world were not impressed with the arguments floated in the
film, or the style of its delivery.
He
Weifang, one of the scholars named and attacked as a tool for U.S. subversion,
responded in a post online:
“This Silent Battle is full
of cold war mentality and language of incitement. It demonizes the pursuit of
freedom and democracy in other countries, and even blames a U.S. conspiracy for
its own corruption and lack of democracy and rule of law. It’s extremely
ridiculous.”
Internet users said
it was a “brain damaged” and “brainwashing film.” Chiqingxiangqu Zuonongfu
remarked: “It’s a garbage feature film. The tone of the film is just like the
Cultural Revolution. It’s not even worth arguing against. But I’m surprised
that it’s produced by the National Defense University, which means there are a
lot of people there that are remnants of the Cultural Revolution. They don’t do
research on military affairs but make films about politics. What’s their goal?”
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