Tuesday 17 September 2013

The insanity at the heart of Chinese nationalism

"Personal opinion" or not, this insane plan for conquering most of Asia published as an editorial in the Chinese Communist Party's Hong Kong-based media outlet Wen Wei Po is certainly the kind of opinion and attitudes that the CCP is happy enough for Chinese citizens to have even if they would never dream of letting them influence official foreign policy.

The piece outlines a series of six "necessary" wars of conquest unfolding between 2020 and 2060 for "unification" of the country ("都是中國必須進行的統一戰爭"), with Taiwan first on the list for subjugation if they reject a 2025 deadline to "peacefully reunify". The fact that reunification at gunpoint is not "peaceful" according to any sane definition of the term does not seem to have occurred tot he author of this deluded piece.

Next up are the islands of the South China Sea. Again, a deadline for "peaceful" settlement of the dispute there is to be set, with war coming if China's terms are not met. The preferred strategy of this article's demented author is to invade Vietnam "because Vietnam is the biggest and strongest of the countries surrounding the South China Sea" ("因為越南是南海周邊最大最有實力的國家").

The third target of this military genius is the recovery of "South Tibet" from India. The pretence of even considering a "peaceful" solution is doen away here, with either the division of India into smaller, more mangeable parts, or a surprise attack in co-ordination with a Chinese-armed Pakistan being the only methods considered.

After these easy conquests, the author turns his (?) attention to the Diaoyutai and Ryukyu islands. In the 1960's China' Communist Party supported the return of the Ryukyu's to Japan, but here the CCP's own paper printing commentary calling the Japanese holding of the Ryukyus (which the author goes out of his way to indicate includes Okinawa) is an "illegal theft of China's wealth in the East Sea" ("非法竊取我國的東海財富")  deserving war.

As the fifth course in this brain-washed individual's banquet of military adventurism, he choses Mongolia. Apparently, having conquered Taiwan, he plans to resurrect the R.O.C.'s claims to the country as this is the only way to acheive "unification" with that country ("所以只能以中華民國的憲章及版圖為依據 對外蒙進行統一").

And the final step in this person's lunatic plan? An attack on Russia to reclaim territory lost by the Qing Dynasty, with war apparently being necessary to Russia's lack of "obedience" ("俄羅斯豈會乖乖歸還,到時唯有一戰。").

Again, I don't think this reflects official thinking in China, even if it was published in a government mouthpiece. If it were, modern-day China would not be engaged in reasonably friendly and productive relationships with many of the countries listed for invasion in this person's plans. Instead, it reflects the kind of insane ultra-nationalism and omni-directional aggression that the government is only too happy to engender in the Chinese population as a distraction from domestic issues.

The thing to keep in mind is, it works.

(H/T Big Lychee blog)



9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This came from Global Times.

Gilman Grundy said...

GT is on the same level as Wen Wei Po - a CCP owned paper that publishes what the CCP wants without necessarily speaking for them.

nulle said...

actually I disagree, nothing in the Wen Wei Po, or Global Times, or People's Daily without some kind of approval from the CCP Propaganda Dept.

This reflects a faction of the CCP have this type of thinking and want to take over the world (kind of hypocritical considering these same idiots rant on the US imperalism)


Disregard this at your own risk

Gilman Grundy said...

@Nulle - For some reason your comment got spammed. Sorry about that.

"nothing in the Wen Wei Po, or Global Times, or People's Daily without some kind of approval from the CCP Propaganda Dept."

Including Ask Alessandro? But you're right, this is something they not only published, but had re-published in other publications they control. Does that mean that they - the CCP leadership - really think like this? No. It's what they want other people to think, what they want other people to think they think.

Anonymous said...

The CCP wants foreigners to think that they are insane raving ultranationalists?

That's too deep for me man.

KingTubby said...

Alessandro says invade Vietnam at your own peril. The present regime south of the border is doing its heavy handed best hosing down anti-Chinese sentiment among the younger generation.

Good luck to this Han space cadet.

Ji Xiang said...

No, I think the idea is that the CCP wants their own people to think they are raving ultra-nationalists (without being insane).

I am pretty sure they want foreigners to think the opposite.

Anonymous said...

Whats so insane about wanting to reclaim territory that is rightfully one's own.

If someone occupied the garage of your house some time back, does it mean you should not want it back.

China does not want to rule the world. China just wants sovereignty over those bits of earth that are rightfully hers.

Anonymous said...

Ok. This is an online forum affiliated with WWP, and not the official publication itself. It's merely the repost of a repost of a blog entry, not some opinion piece by an inhouse writer. This should be clear if you bothered to read the comments or noticed the over-abundance of posts with scantily clad AV stars.

Anyway, have you ever visited stormfront.org? If you base your entire impression of a society on a bunch of crazy blog posts, then I don't know what to say. But even if you believe in the omnipresence of the Party state, it should be clear that in China most important assets are state-owned, therefore, the inevitability of intra-party disagreements and the sheer impossibility of tightly policing online discourse are to be expected.

It's also easy to jump to the same old conclusion that the Party state is whipping up jingoism to distract from the smog. How is that even possible? Last year, when Hong Kong activists decided to embark on their journey to claim the Diaoyu, they were initially stopped by the central government. Among the various reasons for this, not the least of which is the stridently anti-CCP stance of many of the venture's leaders.

If you bother to read the entries of fenqings on weibo, most of them hate China's foreign polic; many openly ridicule the party state. Cixi and Qing Court had this experience with the Boxers before; it was always a utilitarian gambit unrelated to questions of legitimacy. The CCP is not stupid. They want fealty to the Party of course. Loyalty to the State, which can easily come at the expense of the party, is only TOLERATED due to the conflation of the two in contemporary China, but they would not actively encourage it.