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| Latest PLAthing | |
China's PLA has oft been criticized as being little more than a mountain of
corrupt flesh. Over-manned, but under-skilled and under-armed. A million
collective tonnes of cannon fodder to stand between a billion sullen
malcontents and their self corrupt serving government. Overwhelming numbers have worked well for the Chinese leadership since building
The Great Wall. The government of the day ordered that human flesh be turned into
stone and mortar, and it was. A dead body for every meter of wall is a bargain as
long as bodies are plentiful and therefore cheap. When it comes to puting a
low price on a human life, the Chinese are surpassed only by Muslim terrorists. Losing 94 percent of the army in the Long March might have spelled the mother
of all defeats for Mao and his band of psychopathic commies, but he still had
enough manpower to seize control of Middle Kingdom. Mao understood that The Mob
rules. The Mob will always defeat the individual, however powerful, however
righteous. It wasn't just the voices of the many which drowned out the few.
The sheer mass of numbers assures victory for The Mob. The PLA successfully followed that model for half a century, so it might
surprise some of us that it has now changed tack. They have copied the American
model of spoilt military generals demanding newer and more exciting toys from
the technology sector. In this case they have demanded (and apparently
received) a shiny new stealth fighter. The Chinese J-20 made an 18 minute
maiden flight in Chengdu on January-11. Whether this is truly a great leap forward remains to be seen but it does
indicate a small revolution in culture. The Chinese are moving away from their
flesh based strategy, in pursuit of technological one. Why? Because a mountain
of flesh does not make for very effective forward deployment. A stealth fighter
does. China is about to move from a self-absorbed childhood into a narcissistic but
extroverted adolescence. Eventually the best we can hope for is a reserved, if
spiteful, adulthood. The times are going to be very interesting.
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