Above from the South China Morning Post. It's a bit long, but showcases
the goose-stepping humanoids and the synchronised head-swivelling pretty well.
There's a ton of other videos and I'll plan to put a selection at the bottom.
Last Wednesday, 3 September and China did its big thing of the year. Their candidate for the newest Olympic sport of synchronised head-swivelling. I'm sorry, I'll read that again. Their pomp and circumstance, their pompous and circumstantial, their grand, glorious, ghastly-great parade to mark 80 years since Japan was defeated in WW2.
Note the passive voice there. Not "China's defeat of Japan". But "Japan was defeated". Far more correct. Because the defeat of Japan was achieved not by one country, but by four countries mainly -- including China, yes for sure -- and by dozens of other countries in support, including my very own Australia, and including my very own father, who fought those "Japanese devils" to a standstill in the jungles of Papua New Guinea on the infamous Kokoda Trail and at Milne Bay.
There were also different parties on the Chinese side. China at the time was in a titanic internal battle with itself, a civil war, between the armed forces of the KMT -- the Kuo Min Tang, the Nationalist Party -- then ruling what was known as the Republic of China (ROC) and the guerrilla groups of the Chinese Communist Party, then hiding in the hills, but which was to prevail over the KMT in 1949. A KMT more easily defeated, one might add, because they were shagged out by a long squawk they'd borne the brunt of China's (ROC) part of the war against Japan, by a factor of about 20 battles to one of the CCP. But,well, you know, let's not mention the "renegades".
The main coalition of the willing against Japan was: the United States, the Soviet Union, the Republic of China (ROC), and the U.K.. Others included Australia, Canada, New Zealand and various of the Pacific Islands.
It was those four main players whose flags were raised at the Japanese surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay, that September 8 decades ago:
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| Above: flags of the UK, USA, the ROC and the Soviet Union Japanese surrender ceremony, 09:05, 2 September 1945, aboard the USS Missouri, Tokyo Bay Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu (R) presents Instrument of Surrender to General Xu Yongchang, standing (L) who signed for China (ROC) |
The United States was the largest of the coalition, about 85% of the men and materiel. It provided China with nearly $US 40 billions (in today's dollars) by: direct aid; Lend Lease, training and armaments. Then there's its famous Flying Tigers, America's Volunteer Group under the Chinese Air Force.
And what was this vast kerfuffle of a gargantuan military parade in aid of?
Well, in case we were in any doubt at all the international media made sure we knew: "it was to impress the domestic Chinese audience" and then, in case we were too dim: "it was to impress everyone outside China.". So, the whole world then. Got it. As in, duh?
Were the locals impressed? We can't tell of course, thanks to China's Great Firewall. Oh, and there were no members of the public allowed anywhere near Tiananmen Square, or the The Avenue of Eternal Peace. None. They were all local functionaries, apparatchiks of the regime. Loyal followers. Or, as Trump might say, "they're my friends". Or Bill Clinton's "Friends of Bill" or Fobs. Here, "Friends of Xi", or Foxes. Hah!
Mind you, that may not have bothered too many of the locals. For all the cutting back on polluting activities, even cooking with gas and oil, the skies were clearly polluted. You could hardly see the fancy fighter and helicopters at times, so thick was the smog. Not much mention of that, by the way, in the western media.
But we got a glance of what the locals thought via posts on China's Weibo, their very own X. Before the nifty, swifty censors cracked down there were some pretty tasty posts, mocking the whole shebang. Then China's defense industry shares took a tumble on the Shanghai index. Some excused that as "profit taking", but then you don't take profit if you think there's more upside, and they clearly don't think that with what they saw. Not to mention many thought the displays were mere potemkin playthings. Maybe.
The foreigners? Well, there's the commenters on the YouTube videos. Those I saw on the first day after the parade, on channels like the BBC, ABC, CNN, Fortune, our own SCMP, and various other news sources, were giddy with excitement. This parade just showed how wonderful China is, how advanced, how great a display they make of it all. We're doomed!
Strange. Just a few months before, these same folks were telling us, when president Trump held a parade in Washington to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the foundation of the US Army, that it was all horrible, silly, embarrassing. and just showed Trump's dictatorship tendency. They mocked its casualness, and indeed it was pretty casual, with troops ambling along the National Mall, not a goose-step to be seen. Not a head-swivel to be turned. But, had he tried to organise anything more rigidly disciplines, with more goose-stepping and head-swivelling vibe, we know for sure that he would have been denounced even more harshly.
But come the real dictator, with real armies, of real humanoids and real (maybe) laser weapons, and intercontinental missiles, whose only target is the United States, as soon as we have that, then it's swooning all round. Hypocrites.
That's about it for now. I'm glad it's over. Many loved it. I didn't. I found it a ludicrously vainglorious event. If it succeeded at all, it just succeeded in making the rest of the world even more suspicious of China. A China which talks of "peace for the world" out of one side of its mouth then threatens with invasion, repression, war and oppression, across the Taiwan Strait, the one party that did the most in China, 80 years ago, to ward off those Japanese devils. Hypocrites.
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Other vids:
China's military parade is a game changer. CrowderBits
Massive global impact from parade. Race to Space
Military parade a direct message to us all. Sky News, UK
Every weapon explained. (For nerds). Binkov's Battlegrounds
Beijing parade a "coming out party". France 24
Military parade hidden points. The China Show.Winston Stertzl
