China Celebrates 60 Years of Communist Rule
BEIJING — China’s leaders marked their nation’s 60th anniversary on Thursday with a precision display of military bravado that included, improbably, a female militia unit toting submachine guns and attired in red miniskirts and white jackboots, and a fleet of floats with representations of a giant fish and Mount Everest.
The celebration of the founding of the People’s Republic of China was immense, powerful and flawless, down to the crystalline skies that, just a day earlier, had been laden with smog.
In all that, it was a fitting analogy for how China’s Communist Party leaders wanted their citizens and the world to regard them — and, perhaps, how they might be feeling themselves these days. The last such parade, in 1999, was of interest mainly to foreign military analysts and China hands. This time, the world’s news outlets reported raptly on the significance of every detail, and China’s state-run television network streamed video coverage over the Internet, in English and other languages, to viewers worldwide.
Beyond that, however, the Chinese made few concessions to their global audience. The 60th-anniversary celebration was slightly kitschy and indisputably retro, a carbon copy of the prior once-a-decade celebrations.
“On one level, they are naturally aware of the international audience, but in the end this is a parade and show for Chinese leaders and the people of China,” Geremie R. Barmé, professor of Chinese history at the Australian National University, said in an interview. “It has always been such a show. It is a display of China’s might and power. When it comes to this kind of parade, international perceptions are just not that important.”
Read entire article at NYT
The celebration of the founding of the People’s Republic of China was immense, powerful and flawless, down to the crystalline skies that, just a day earlier, had been laden with smog.
In all that, it was a fitting analogy for how China’s Communist Party leaders wanted their citizens and the world to regard them — and, perhaps, how they might be feeling themselves these days. The last such parade, in 1999, was of interest mainly to foreign military analysts and China hands. This time, the world’s news outlets reported raptly on the significance of every detail, and China’s state-run television network streamed video coverage over the Internet, in English and other languages, to viewers worldwide.
Beyond that, however, the Chinese made few concessions to their global audience. The 60th-anniversary celebration was slightly kitschy and indisputably retro, a carbon copy of the prior once-a-decade celebrations.
“On one level, they are naturally aware of the international audience, but in the end this is a parade and show for Chinese leaders and the people of China,” Geremie R. Barmé, professor of Chinese history at the Australian National University, said in an interview. “It has always been such a show. It is a display of China’s might and power. When it comes to this kind of parade, international perceptions are just not that important.”