China's Military - The US View
Interesting article. My take is the article does not look at it from the Chinese prospective and take into account Chinese politics.
China's High-Tech Military Threat - Commentary Magazine
Another article that is a bit more balanced:
China’s military rise - The Economist
Great quote:
At present, despite much Pentagon prompting, contacts between the two armed forces are limited, tightly controlled by the PLA and ritually frozen by politicians whenever they want to “punish” America—usually because of a tiff over Taiwan.
China's High-Tech Military Threat - Commentary Magazine
Another article that is a bit more balanced:
China’s military rise - The Economist
Great quote:
At present, despite much Pentagon prompting, contacts between the two armed forces are limited, tightly controlled by the PLA and ritually frozen by politicians whenever they want to “punish” America—usually because of a tiff over Taiwan.
Labels: US Chinese Image
posted by Ray Ritchey at
11:41 AM
2 Comments:
Some boring history lessons to follow, but these should provide a interesting bits of insight to the present-day Chinese military build-up.
Perhaps most average Americans do not have a good grasp of Chinese history. There are major lessons of unification and division politics and warfare drawn from the ancient Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period and Three Kingdoms Period. However, I need not repeat them here.
In the 12th-13th centuries C.E., the Song Dynasty was militarily weak. Song Dynasty lost northern Han Chinese territory to the nomadic Jurchen people. The ultimate collapse of the Song Dynasty came with the Mongol conquest of Genghis Khan and the foreign occupation of Yuan Dynasty.
Qing Dynasty. The rapid defeat of Qing forces by the British Royal Navy in the Opium Wars. In light of the military build-up of People's Republic of China, one should visit the historic Dagu Forts in Tianjin, where the Opium War battle occurred. Do not forget the defeat of Qing China in the Sino-Japanese War. This seriously undermined Qing credibility, leading to anti-Qing republican revolutions.
Also, the Republic of China Nationalist under Chiang Kai-shek was unable to fight the Empire of Japan effectively. Manchuria was conquered and the Rape of Nanjing occurred.
When a country has seen firsthand series of invasions, modern-day People's Republic of China has a siege mentality. They are essentially using historic humiliations to play up the nationalist pride.
When the US military maintains presence and installations in Alaska, Hawaii, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, abd Afghanistan, the top brass of the People's Liberation Army are on edge.
If the PLA is unable to show it can defend the country properly, the ruling Chinese Communist Party will surely lose political credibility and legitimacy among the populace, just as with the previous imperial dynasties and the Nationalist Party.
Most mainstream US or western media would not go into great detail about China anyway. They are fairly cursory and narrowly focused on how China is trying to take over the world.
Great points! I would add the word perception to "of being able to defend the country". As well as matching the status militarily of other countries, as China has matched the status in other areas. For example I see the drive for an air craft carier being much more about status, than actually being militarily necessary (I see them as big, costly targets).
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