Dating back to over a century-and-a-half ago when the British Navy, and its present day ally, France, forced China, upon threat of bombardment, to open its borders under terms which were quite unfair to Chinese interests and amongst other things allowed licit trade in Opium, a heinous crime which devastated thousands in China rendering many to be zombies operating under the influence of opiates, to the Nanjing holocaust when the Imperial Japanese army slaughtered over 300,000 Chinese nationals during World War II, the Chinese have been the butt of jokes in international circles as the ever under-performing giant. A giant that has been routinely battered by countries far less endowed than it in terms of population, size of territory, historic pedigree or otherwise, a giant whose populations have been routinely raped, pillaged and enslaved over the decades.
However, in the course of over half a century, starting from the end of World War II and expedited during the Cultural Revolution under the leadership of Chairman Mao, the Chinese have successfully redefined, rebuilt, reenergized and recalibrated the Chinese concept. From a mainly agrarian, rural and uneducated population, China has in the course of the past half century, by dint of hard work, sheer patriotic fervor and focused leadership, transformed not only her peoples, her landscape and her economic potentials, but also how the global community perceives her.
Gone are the days when the world looked down on China and her peoples and referred to them by all manners of derogatory epithets; those who still do, do so to their own detriment and merely reflect deep-rooted ignorance. Gone also is the era when the Chinese existed as recluses, keeping to their history and themselves and requiring foreign armies to force them to open up their territories to international trade; now, the Chinese brand is global, with virtually everthing, everywhere having some Chinese component. Chinese firms now dominate global trade, going where others shy from threading under self-imposed human right considerations and using their unique numerical and low-cost-of-production advantage to drive market leaders underground.
Beginning to feel some sense of stability and sustainability in its global economic clout and the need to reinforce its presence at the world stage, the Chinese are now beginning to flex its muscles in the one area where it had, for decades, played the global underdog – the military sphere.
The decades of playing second fiddle militarily had come at great costs, in terms of loss of territory and prestige. It is thus only natural that when the tide changes, as it surely appears to have, efforts will be made to recover lost territory and regain lost prestige. Desirous of a peacetime opportunity to let the rest of the world know that it had come of age, and its rediscovered capabilities to take a stand at the global stage and defend such stance by whatever means, Chinese authorities opted to use the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japan during World War II, a victory China knows it was only able to achieve after the twin devastating atomic bomb annihilations the United States had visited Japan with, to let the world know its capabilities.
And what a show the Chinese unveiled.
As China makes greater territorial claims in the South China seas and gets more assertive with its neighbors, assertions which have served to put several of its neighbors on edge, and the United States enters into more Bilateral Defense Treaties with these countries with whom China is increasingly having border skirmishes, it can validly be contended that it is more a matter of when, and not if, before there will be lethal exchanges between China and the United States.
Considering the resources at the disposal of these two giants and the renewed patriotism and desire never to return to a past of subservience imbued into the Chinese psyche, such a confrontation will if not prevented prior to its onset, descend into mankind’s worst case scenario.
Picture: Chinese President Xi Jinping review the military parade at the 70th anniversary celebrations of China's 'victory' in the war of resistance against Japan.
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