No doubt that the PLA showed off their new toys at the military parade that will pass by Tiananmen Square via Jian Guo Men Da Jie/Jianguomen avenue.


Instructor aligns the formation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Airborne Corps during a training session at the 60th National Day Parade Village on the outskirts of Beijing
Photo Credit: Joe Chan/Reuters

++http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/090930/w0930157A.html

quote:

Military parade marking 60 years of communist rule in China stirs both pride and unease
Published: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 | 7:29 PM ET
Canadian Press Charles Hutzler, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING - To mark 60 years of communist rule China put together its biggest-ever military parade: hundreds of thousands of marchers, batteries of goose-stepping soldiers and weaponry from drone missiles to amphibious assault vehicles. Everyone else, though, was asked to stay home.

China blocked off its city centre closing everything from Tiananmen Square to the Forbidden City as it readied for Thursday's celebration, asking residents to tune into the events by television.

Festivities surrounding the founding of the People's Republic will feature President Hu Jintao reviewing chanting troops, a flyover by domestically made fighter jets and tens of thousands of students flipping cards to make pictures.

Sixty floats celebrating China's manned space program and other symbols of progress will follow the military convoy along the parade route through Tiananmen Square.

The display is meant to underscore what the leadership calls the "revival of the great Chinese nation," and the plans stirred both patriotism - and some unease at the pomp and firepower.

"China's international standing has risen in an unprecedented way. We feel extremely proud of the increasing strength and prosperity of our motherland," Premier Wen Jiabao said in a nationally televised speech on the anniversary's eve.

The feel-good, if heavily scripted moment is tapping into Chinese pride surrounding the country's turnaround from the war-battered, impoverished state the communists took over in 1949 to the dynamic, third-largest world economy of today.

The buoyant mood glosses over the country's gut wrenching twists - the ruinous campaigns of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong that left tens of millions dead - as well as its current challenges: a widening gap between rich and poor, rampant corruption, severe pollution and ethnic uprisings in western areas of Tibet and Xinjiang.

In a sign of concern about the social ferment unleashed by free-market reforms, the government has suggested people in Beijing stay home to watch the parade on television.

Security in Beijing has been intensifying for weeks over worries that protests, which are common in China, or an overexuberant crowd might mar the ceremonies. Parts of central Beijing were sealed off and businesses were told to shut down, beginning Tuesday.

"How many hundreds of millions are being spent on the National Day troop review? Can you tell the taxpayers?" the prolific blogger Li Huizhi, a small businessman in southern Guangzhou city wrote on his popular blog Sunday. "Aren't the possibly tens of billions in money spent perhaps a bit of a disservice to the people? Because in today's China, there are countless places more in need of this money."

Explanations vary for why such elaborate festivities are being staged. Among them is the speculation that 60 is an auspicious number that plays well with Chinese who say it traditionally represents the full life of a person. The country's leadership has avoided mention of anything to do with superstition, though.

The government has customarily held military parades on 10th anniversaries. With China riding high in the world and feeling good about itself after the Beijing Olympics, the 60th was the Hu administration's chance to score popularity points.

Early this year, before China's economy rebounded from the global downturn, authorities promised only a modest celebration in keeping with the gloomy times.

The parade is now billed by state media as China's largest-ever display of weaponry, reminiscent of the Soviet Union, and it comes with the mass synchronized performances usually associated with North Korea. Alongside the 80,000 card-flippers making 41 pictures, another 100,000 civilians are to accompany the floats, many of them with kitschy displays of computers and signs of industry.

Some 5,000 goose-stepping soldiers who have rehearsed for five months are to accompany the armaments - new unmanned aerial drones, amphibious fighting vehicles and the new DH-10 land-based anti-ship cruise missiles.

"I wonder what Chinese leaders are thinking? For more than 15 years they have been denouncing those who call China's rise a threat. Now they put on this display of military hardware, with goose-stepping soldiers to match. Aren't they confirming the China Threat?" said Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California.

The People's Liberation Army in its newspaper early this year said the event's meaning was clear: "This military parade is a comprehensive display of the Party's ability to rule and of the overall might of the nation."

Geremie Barme, a China scholar at Australian National University who has studied past National Day parades, said the displays are typically aimed at the domestic audience - Communist Party officials and ordinary Chinese. "It is meant to educate, excite, unite and entertain. If a tad of 'shock and awe' is delivered around the world, all well and good," he said.

An unmanned aircraft is seen during a parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in Beijing October 1, 2009.
REUTERS/David Gray



In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, the phalanx of national flag receives inspection in a parade in Beijing of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the founding of China on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009. China celebrated its rise to a world power over 60 years of Communist rule Thursday, staging its biggest-ever parade of military hardware with over 100,000 marching masses in a display that stirred patriotism, and some unease. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Huang Jingwen



A Marine Corps vehicle receives inspection during a military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, in central Beijing October 1, 2009. REUTERS/China Daily




A float depicting China's space achievements participates in a parade to mark the 60th China anniversary in Beijing, China, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009. China celebrated its rise to a world power over 60 years of Communist rule Thursday, staging its biggest-ever parade of military hardware with over 100,000 marching masses in a display that stirred patriotism and some unease. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

China Parades a 'Steel Great Wall'

Deutsche Presse-Agentur | October 01, 2009

BEIJING - China showed off much of its latest military hardware today in a parade to mark the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule, including long-range missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.

Among the missiles identified by China Central Television was the Dongfeng-31A, an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear warhead and reportedly capable of reaching a target up to 11,000 kilometres away.

The state broadcaster said the 8,000 People's Liberation Army and paramilitary troops who took part in the parade along with their hundreds of vehicles, planes and missiles were key elements in China's "steel Great Wall."

The military parade showcased 52 types of weapons systems, including battle tanks, anti-aircraft guns, drones, attack helicopters, third-generation J-10 fighter planes and early-warning aircraft.

Senior Colonel Zhang Guangzhong, who led the 2nd Artillery's nuclear missile formation in the parade, said his troops had taken delivery in 2007 of new nuclear missiles with "quicker response, longer range and enhanced maneuverability."

Research and development of strategic nuclear missiles "represents the highest level of the country's homegrown weapons," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang as saying.

"Many of our domestically made arms have been produced on the basis of technologies and experience of developed countries, but China has chosen a completely independent way in developing strategic nuclear weapons," Zhang said.

The agency quoted army headquarters as praising nuclear missiles as its "trump card" and noted that President Hu Jintao had recently reiterated China's "no first strike" policy.

Among more than a dozen other missile systems identified in the parade were Dongfeng 21C medium-range ballistic missiles, Dongfeng 15B and Dongfeng 11A short-range missiles, Hongqi coastal defence and ship-to-air missiles, and Hongqi 12 surface-to-air missiles.

Xinhua quoted Defence Minister Liang Guanglie as saying last month that China was already close to matching Western nations in military technology.

"We have military-use satellites; advanced fighter aircraft in the air; newly designed tanks, cannons and missiles on land; and advanced naval vessels and submarines at sea," Liang said.

"Much of our weaponry has reached or come close to the world-leading standards," he was quoted as saying.

The army saw its first large military parade in 10 years as a "sacred mission" so important that the participating soldiers spent five months training for the event.

With an arsenal of nuclear missiles and a navy with an increasingly visible presence in the disputed waters of South-East Asia, many Western analysts see China's heavy military investment as pursuing rapid parity with the United States, which Chinese military leaders still see as their main adversary.

"For the international society ... to see China becoming strong, they may feel a little nervous," Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based commentator on military affairs, told the German Press Agency dpa before the parade.

But Song argued that by strengthening the army, China was only seeking a "normal balance" between its robust economic interests and a relatively weak military.

"For example, every year, [China] has some crude oil and iron ore transportation by sea, but actually, it cannot afford security protection for this, so the military power, which should support its security interests, is far from enough," Song said.

quote:

Originally posted by Sgt_Schlappy:
China Parades a 'Steel Great Wall'

Deutsche Presse-Agentur | October 01, 2009

BEIJING - China showed off much of its latest military hardware today in a parade to mark the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule, including long-range missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.

Among the missiles identified by China Central Television was the Dongfeng-31A, an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear warhead and reportedly capable of reaching a target up to 11,000 kilometres away.

It proves that DF-31A can visit the hometown of Sgt_Schlappy if the guy do continue to be hostile to China and curse China as before.

If US and China refight again as 55 years ago, I think most of the creatures on the earth might die----is that what you want???

I do hope US and China should be a good friends!