Okay, there are a lot of them. An awful lot, and they work for a government that we don't see eye to eye with.
They also march real pretty.
But how dangerous are they for real?
While this video is three years old, the guy raises some valid points.
Big bad wolf?
Or paper tigers?
Remember, quantity has a quality all its own.
Your thoughts?
I remember listening to a guy in a high school class (the teacher brought folks in to talk to us) about being at the front lines in Korea when the bugles started and two million Chinese came over the hill.
ReplyDeleteThere is something to be said for numbers....
Indeed there is.
DeleteExactly what I was thinking....
DeleteYup.
DeleteMarchers.... uniform height, no glasses, looks like the Chinese spend as much time on parade ground minutia as the US military spent on PC training during the Obama administration. Since the Communists are in control of China and that part of the world takes a long term view of things, developments in the South China Sea are very worrisome. I do find it encouraging that their gen Z is as out of shape and overweight as ours. Watch out for the cyber Pearl Harbor though since so much of our infrastructure is controlled that way.
ReplyDelete...a chill just ran down my spine.
DeleteNylon12 - Also worthy of note is that the PLA belongs to the Party...
DeleteNot the people. I wonder how many remember Tienanmen Square?
BC - Indeed.
DeleteAnd many of their factories are owned and operated by the PLA. Factories that make everything from tanks to cell phones. Operated by the Army. So how many people in uniform do they actually have?
DeleteYup, hard to tell where the Party stops and the PLA begins!
DeleteWell, they might just be as apprehensive as we are.
ReplyDeleteIronically, we aren’t worried one bit about all of those immigrants here already.
I was in Costco the other day and was outnumbered by people whose language I vaguely recognize as Mandarin.
Immigrants?
DeleteOr Fifth Column, hiding in plain sight?
Yes.
DeleteRoger that.
DeleteI am not a fan of Douglas MacArthur buy he was absolutely correct when he said Never get involved in a land war in Asia. Anyone who denigrates the threat that China presents is a fool. I served with men who had survived the Chosin campaign and who fought the Chinese in the mountains of Korea. They respected the PLA, not just because there were so many of them, but because they were good soldiers. If I recall correctly the word was that if you lined the entire PLA up and marched them in front of a M1919 you would never reach the end of the line. As Chesty Puller once said "There's a whole $hitload of'em."
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of them, that's for sure.
DeleteExcept for stalemating USSR in a vicious war in the 70's that neither really acknowledge, the only other active military engagement I remember them being involved in in the last 50 years was when they fought Vietnam and lost big time, from what few reports have come out of that little incident.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Tienanmen Square incident, it looks like, to me, they have regional armies that they use to quell other regions.
And, though their navy is full of all of our secrets (thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton)(oh, and you too, Lightbringer) it has been untested.
On paper they look tough. And we're only allowed to see what they want us to see.
But, consider this. Mongolia (yes, that Mongolia) is a mineral and resource rich nation that isn't exactly the most populous or the most militarily advanced nation on the planet. But this nugget has been left pretty untouched by the ChiComms. Why? You would think that with little history of fighting since WWII, and with being so numerous, that with the fall and disintegration of the Soviet sphere that China would have just moved their borders a little north and east, maybe doing it like they did Tibet and take it from the inside first.
I get the feeling that they've been feeling us out, and the string of worthless and semi-worthless appeasers we've had since Bush I hasn't helped a single thing. The South Asian Sea (there are lots more countries that work and own those waters than China, so, I am officially renaming that body of water) landgrab is frightening. Frightening enough that Australia is building ships as quickly as they can. ChiComm's slow Island Hopping campaign worries me very much. I am wondering how much the people in the Pentagon have planned for reactivating some of the bases left over from our island hopping campaign.
Summary: Thanks, FDR for supporting the wrong side as usual. What, you never met a socialist you didn't like? Yes, their army is huge, their airforce is huge, their navy for the area is huge and all are getting bigger, stronger, faster thanks to us selling or losing secrets to them.
Can they hang with the big boys who have been brawling for the last 40 or more years? Maybe.
The question, after their 1 child policy has been in effect for over 30 years, is do they have the gumption to. Once they were many-sons rich. Now? There's a lost generation, and the next generation is going to be interesting. Lots of mixed-race children, whom the hardliners don't/won't/will never trust (it's almost a genetic thing for a full-blood mainland Chinese to not trust mixed-race) so there's that, too.
I think as long as we have a good leader in Washington and we can keep whacking at the deep state and get our ducks in a row we'll be okay. Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand and the PI? They're focked, unless we support them.
Very true, especially that last paragraph.
DeleteThey are indeed great at casting and choreographing martial spectaculars. But, they have enough soldiers (counting PLAN and AF all as "soldiers" for now) that they can afford to have large primarily ceremonial units. Indeed one of China's challenges is to find work, even busy work, for their huge population.
ReplyDeleteWhile we mainly see the parades and such, look at the steady growth in the size of the PLAN, the technical capabilities of their growing fleet, and where in the world it is operating. Look at the plethora of new "islands" which not only create (from whole cloth?) territorial claims but are nice strategic and tactical bases to expand their military and economic (including mineral/oil fishing) control over vast areas. Simultaneously this pushes back the unhindered access (in international waters) of non-Chinese nations.
Chinese weapons systems, domestically invented, purchased from the Russkies, or blatant copies of stolen western designs are pretty good, and nearly comparable to U.S. systems. They can afford to spend on defense (and offense), largely thanks to the huge trade imbalance, not to mention the massive income they derive from the trillions of dollars of our debt they have purchased. We are indeed paying for the rope to hang us. And, if they decided to no longer buy our debt, that alone could collapse our economy.
While the Chinese retain the quality of quantity which made them so formidable in the Korean War, today their equipment and training are far better, which multiplies their numerical advantages.
On the other hand, the U.S. cannot afford the military we once had, or what we need now. Even if we made intelligent choices on what military stuff to buy. (Which we do not!) We cannot even afford all the "free stuff" we are giving away and can never be cut even slightly without the collapse of our civilization, or at least the incineration of our urban centers by their dependent class inhabitants.
We must not make the mistake of misunderstimating Chinese military power, or our own vulnerability.
Images of Chinese troops kidding around or doing stupid stuff or demonstrating ineptitude or poor training could be matched by nearly identical clips of U.S. troops, after all both involve human beings with all their foibles and foolishness which know no ethnic limitations.
Respect the Chinese, they have been running a powerful nation for millennia while we have less than 250 years experience.
Also remember that U.S. troops were fighting Chinese forces in their capital city only 117 years ago. The Chinese have long memories, while Americans hardly remember the latest Kardashian nonsense. Payback can be unpleasant when we have set the precedent.
John Blackshoe
The Chinese are not supermen. That's all I'm trying to point out.
DeleteTheir real strength (and our weakness) is in cyber. How well will our Soldiers and Sailors be able to focus on a fight when they've shut off the bank accounts to our family members? Or even created all sorts of havoc stateside with all sorts of computer-based systems- ATC, medical, power generation, etc. When they want to take Taiwan back, they'll be allowed to, as we probably wouldn't risk a carrier or two to stop what would be very tough fight. Those islands they're building will help deter us from getting too close to that fight.
ReplyDeleteWe are way behind in the cyber arena, that's for sure.
DeleteWhat Tuna said. Cyber. As a society, we are tying then noose around our own collective neck. Siri and Alex can both send and receive at frequencies above the range of human hearing. Think about all the daily sounds in your house. Major appliances, HVAC, toilet flush. Those sounds can be date/time stamped. And that's just sound, and just inside your house. Most people have no clue what meta data is. It is patterns of behavior. Are the Chinese listening? You can bet they are trying. Smart meter on your house? Cyber secure, right?
DeleteScary times.
DeleteThe female troops have nice racks.
ReplyDeleteThat's a hospital unit, allegedly. But yeah, I noticed that. :)
DeleteThinking more about it, the ChiComms have not had the best record. Seriously.
ReplyDeletePretty much let the Nationalists beat on the Japanese during WWII, only coming out of their den to fight when the odds were way too heavy on their side, or someone in FDR's administration wanted to see results of all the aid the US was shipping to the ChiComms.
Almost lost against the Nationalist Chinese even though they outnumbered hugely, were supported by all the aid we gave them and by the Soviets.
Lost in Korea even though they, again, way outnumbered us. Chosin was, in many ways, the US Marines assaulting through their rear through hordes, no, mobs. Ghenghis would have been mortified to find out what the ChiComms did to the word "Horde."
They won against Tibet, via an inside job. Weeee… We beat Tibet! Yay... no.
Overly outnumbering the Soviets, they barely got a stalemate on the Soviets eastern front.
Got the dog-piss kicked out of them by the Viets.
Oh, and back in the late 1890's-1900's they (or their forefathers) got the dogsqueeze kicked out of them by the few, the proud, the Marines (and a bunch of other delegations, but My great grandfather was at the delegation wearing a Marine uniform, so pooo on everyone else. Blllppphhhht!) (and a bunch of other forces, but, well, if the delegation had fallen, it would have been harder to win.)
So. Against Tibet, it was a clear win, but against everyone else? They have been spoiling for a fight they can win. Which explains their island creating campaign. They think no-one will stand up to them. They think the recent spate of extremely liberal pushover politicians in the surrounding nations means they have an assured win. They have lots and lots of new shiny toys but have had only exercises, and their own people, to use them in.
They are sorely mistaken. The Eagle no longer has jesses holding him down and the hood is long gone. The Aussies are taking it seriously, and have ships armed with proven weapons, and are militarily acting like it's 1940. Japan and South Korea have grudgingly worked out some of their issues to the point they've scheduled some joint exercises.
areis, are the leaders in Beijing listening? Do they care? Or have they backed themselves into a corner where they feel they have to jump?
Good analysis Beans.
DeleteI see the ChiComms dragging the world down the same hole that started in Sarejevo oh so many years ago. They have trapped themselves into their own fairy tales. Even electing a new emperor.
DeleteLet's hope they figure out pretty damned quick that fairy tales aren't real. And that, just like what happened to Imperial Japan in the 40's, all the careful planning in the world doesn't mean dog spit once things start up.
Let's hope they figure it out. After all, the Chinese aren't stupid, they DO understand history.
DeleteDO they? A lot of them I've met actually kinda believe in that whole Middle Kingdom thingy. Not the ones from Taiwan or Hong Kong, but the ones from Beijing seem to be very full of themselves.
DeleteWell, I was being diplomatic.
DeleteAs you can see, I'm not very good at that. ;)