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China shows off military might at 60th anniversary parade
Tanks and lorries roll through Beijing to mark 60th anniversary of communism in China
Tanks and lorries bearing nuclear missiles rolled through the streets of the Chinese capital today, fighter planes roared overhead and tens of thousands of military and security forces marched through Tiananmen Square as the People's Republic celebrated its 60th anniversary this morning.
But few of the people of Beijing were allowed anywhere near the vast parade. While about 30,000 guests were invited, other residents were told to stay indoors and watch the 3 km procession on television.
The huge display of might – its biggest ever show of military hardware – combined the ideological slogans and massed ranks of previous parades with unprecedented security levels and extraordinary choreography.
Soldiers were arranged in part according to height and have spent months practising their marching – in part to ensure their steps were precisely the right length.
The veteran "model workers" waving to the crowd, and the floats with engines and giant wheatsheafs could have come straight from the China of the fifties. Other sections paid tribute to Mao Zedong thought, which state television commentators said had been "proved correct". The country which has long since turned its back on Maoism for "socialism with Chinese characteristics" – the political status quo but a market economy, albeit with high levels of state intervention.
There were innovations too – the glittery pompoms brandished by marchers, along with garlands or bunches of flowers; the women's militia, marching in miniskirts and boots; the wind turbines which graced the "energy" float alongside oil derricks.
There was an Olympic formation with a model of the Bird's Nest stadium and the Chinese astronaut who performed the country's first spacewalk last year waved from his float.
He must have sweltered in his spacesuit: despite the heavy fog of the last two days, blue skies appeared on cue early this morning. Officials had pledged to seed clouds if necessary to ensure good weather, and rain appeared abruptly at around midnight last night.
Thousands of students flipped over coloured cards to form slogans including "Loyalty to the party" as the tanks and amphibious landing craft rolled through Tiananmen Square.
Events began with a 60-gun salute. Hu Jintao – chairman of the Central Military Commission, general-secretary of the Communist central committee and Chinese president – stood in an open-topped limousine to reviewed the troops along Chang'an Avenue. He wore a black Mao suit, while other leaders wore Western suits.
"Hello comrades!" he shouted at intervals. In perfect unison, the troops replied: "Hello commander!" and "Serve the people!"
Later, standing on the Tiananmen rostrum – the spot where Mao proclaimed the creation of the new China – Hu declared: "[We] have triumphed over all sorts of difficulties and setbacks and risks to gain the great achievements evident to the world.
"Today, a socialist China geared toward modernisation, the world and the future towers majestically in the East."
Commentators on China's English language TV channel repeatedly stressed the country's commitment to peace, describing its military as defensive and stressing its contribution to peacekeeping initiatives.
Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California, said: "It sticks to the strategy of using nuclear power to defend and refuses to engage in the nuclear arms race," said the commentator as camouflaged lorries bearing ballistic missiles rolled past the leaders and the airforce roared overhead, issuing a rainbow of smoke-trails behind them.
"For more than 15 years [Chinese leaders] 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?"
Others have suggested the parade is also useful advertising: China has a growing arms industry, though it still lags far behind the United States and European countries including the UK.
The country's first female fighter pilots were among those flying the 151 jets; "reminders of our heroines in history". But more than half a century after Mao declared that "women hold up half the sky", the frequent shots of leaders on the Tiananmen rostrum were a reminder that no women serve in the Politburo select committee.
Hu and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, watched as huge portraits of themselves were carried past, part of a lengthy section celebrating China's leaders since 1949, but omitting Hua Guofeng, Mao's immediate successor. As Mao's portrait passed, a loudspeaker blared out a recording of him announcing the founding of the republic.
A 2,000-strong military band played martial tunes throughout the procession.
Geremie Barme of the 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.
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China marks 60 years with spectacle of power
China's capital began to celebrate the country's ascendance with a show of goose-stepping troops, gaudy floats and nuclear-capable missiles on Thursday, 60 years after Mao Zedong proclaimed its embrace of communism.
Thousands of police and troops cleared central Beijing of all passers-by before the anniversary parade for the birth of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949.
Tiananmen Square has become a high-tech stage to display the ruling Communist Party's achievements before invited guests.
Troops started celebrations by firing cannons, marching down red carpet on the Square and raising the red national flag, watched on by President Hu Jintao wearing a slate grey Mao suit, who stood with other Communist Party leaders on the "Gate of Heavenly Peace."
Hu then descended and began to inspect rows of soldiers and tanks, riding past them in a black limousine and saying repeatedly, "Hello comrades, hard-working comrades!"
The parade of 8,000 picture-perfect soldiers, tanks and missiles, 60 elaborate floats, and 100,000 well-drilled civilians will be a proud moment for many Chinese citizens, watching the spectacle across the country on television.
The Xinhua news agency said the country's "newest model of intercontinental nuclear-capable missiles" will be on show.
"I'm sure it will be a great spectacle," said Liu Qingyuan, a 40-year-old vegetable seller listening to a radio broadcast about the parade preparations on her radio on a Beijing street.
"I am very excited about it, although I can't go and see it."
President Hu Jintao also wants the day of extraordinary spectacle and security to make the case that its formula of one-party rule and rapid growth remains the right one for hauling the world's third-biggest economy into prosperity, ruling 1.3 billion people and elevating China into a superpower.
The soldiers goose-stepping past Tiananmen Square at exactly 116 steps a minute will carry the message that this Party knows how to run a show -- and a huge, restive country.
"From desperate poverty to the world's third biggest economy, from not having enough to eat and wear to general prosperity ... China has never been as strong," said an editorial in the official People's Daily.
Before the parade, the displays were trundled into place on the eastern edge of central Beijing.
They included a farm produce float with two model cows; one showing China's space programme with a lunar orbiter; and a Beijing Olympic Games display including a model of the Bird's Nest stadium.
But the display of power will be a marching embodiment of a paradox of present-day China -- a government that claims it has never been stronger and closer to its people, yet appears afraid of even small incidents that could tarnish its authority.
Officials have swaddled the event in thick security, making it impossible for ordinary Beijing residents to see the parade directly.
They have been told to stay home and watch the television, and even those living on the parade route are banned from peeking out their windows. Flights into Beijing will stop during the parade and even kites and pet pigeons have been grounded.
"The credit for 60 years of brilliant achievements goes to the Chinese people and the great Chinese Communist Party," Premier Wen Jiabao told an anniversary reception late on Wednesday.
"We must unwaveringly protect social stability," Premier Wen told the officials and leaders gathered in the echoing Great Hall of the People, the parliament building next to Tiananmen Square.
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Mooncakes and money: 60 years of change
In the 60 years since Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the Communist state, China has seen more changes than almost anywhere else on earth.
In Xi Bai Xin, on the northern edge of Beijing, I met an old man who has experienced it all.
His name is Mr Wang and he is 78 years old. When I spoke to him, he was standing at a market stall heaped high with produce, appraising the "si gua" - big vegetables like outsized courgettes.
The changes he has seen include: the establishment of Marxism-Leninism and the collectivisation of the land; the appalling upheavals of the Cultural Revolution; the great famine that killed millions; the alleged coup headed by Mao's favourite, Lin Biao, and his escape and death when it failed and the rise of the radical leftist Gang of Four.
Then Mao's own death, followed a month later by the Gang of Four's arrest; the remarkable programme of modernisation spear-headed by Deng Xiaoping and the doomed attempt to get rid of him and establish greater democracy, which ended with the Tiananmen massacre.
Most important of all, he has seen the way a backward peasant society has transformed itself into the greatest manufacturing economy in human history.
Naturally, all Mr Wang wanted to talk about was the vegetables on the market stalls. "We've never had as much food as this before," he said proudly, and shuffled away.
Secret pleasures
The rules controlling everyday life have veered as wildly as everything else over the years.
In the 1970s a friend of mine who was one of only two or three Western correspondents based in Beijing came to know her government-appointed translator well.
The translator revealed her deepest secret - on their wedding anniversary she and her husband would give their children sleeping-pills, take up the floor-boards, and pull out a hidden trunk containing a ball-gown and a dinner jacket.
They would dress up, take a few dance-steps round their tiny room in utter silence, then hide the trunk away for another year.
If their children had seen them, they would have informed on them to the police.
There were snoopers everywhere, reporting the slightest misbehaviour.
Single uniform
Everyone in the entire country, male or female, young or old, wore precisely the same clothes: a Mao jacket and trousers, in black or dark blue. The slightest deviation was punished brutally.
In August 1978, Mao's successor, his former bodyguard Hua Guofeng, travelled to Romania. Together with dozens of the world's China-watchers, I went to Bucharest to report on his visit.
As Mr Hua and his team came down the plane's steps there were audible gasps from the Sinologues around me.
An undistinguished-looking woman walking behind him was wearing a Mao suit that was dark brown.
Such revolutionary non-conformity, clearly sanctioned by the leader himself, was a sign that things were suddenly changing.
In 1989, during the Tiananmen demonstrations, one of the ways young people showed their new independence was to walk around hand-in-hand, something the government snoopers disapproved of.
Nowadays, people wear pretty much what they like.
But there are still snoopers, and though the politicians have changed remarkably (one leading figure sends his son to Eton), the police are still largely unreconstructed.
Mooncakes and money
There is a national complaints office in Beijing. People often travel for days, but when they get there they risk abuse, beatings or arrest by the police who man it. At present, during this period of national thanksgiving, the complaints office has been closed.
A man outside his small shop on the outskirts of Beijing
Change has been uneven across China, especially in rural areas
Leading dissidents are under house arrest. When I visited one, a man who was shot and injured at Tiananmen, I found he had just been arrested. The alley where he lives was still swarming with police.
The authorities are determined that no-one will spoil the celebration.
They are particularly worried about protests connected with Tibet or the Muslim parts of China.
But none of this affects ordinary people. In the main street of Xi Bai Xin, Mr Wang's village on the northern edge of Beijing, there are no flags, no banners greeting the 60th anniversary, and little sign of local party officials.
There is an air of genuine relaxation and enjoyment. The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming, and people are buying their mooncakes. After 60 years of Communism, life has never been so pleasant.
Yet it is utterly meaningless to talk about Communism here nowadays.
Outside the village of Xi Bai Xin there are big commuter estates where the houses can cost a million pounds ($630,000) each. And how do many of the villagers earn a living? They work as servants in the houses.
Things are right back where they started in 1949. Only now life is a lot richer and more relaxed.
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A milestone in the life of China, says Manmohan
India committed to improving its relations with China: Prime Minister
"Our shared vision for 21st century is reflected in our wide-ranging cooperation on global issues"
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday that India was committed to improving its relations with China in an "all-round manner."
In a message to Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Dr. Singh said the occasion was "an important milestone in the life of China and an occasion for celebrations of your great nation's many achievements in the last 60 years. As a friendly neighbour and a developing nation, we in India share your sense of happiness on this important occasion."
Dr. Singh said the strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity established by India and China developed over the past four years. "Our shared vision for the 21st century is also reflected in our wide-ranging cooperation and coordination on pressing global and international issues."
Yang Jiechi's visit
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi will visit India next month to take part in the second standalone Russia-India-China (RIC) meeting in Bangalore. He will be joined by his Indian and Russian counterparts S.M. Krishna and Sergei Lavrov but bilateral issues are not on the agenda.
The three Foreign Ministers are expected to deliberate on climate change, restructuring of multilateral funding agencies and the global economic recession, besides regional issues.
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China is awake, the world is trembling
This was 60 years ago, a full circle in the Chinese calendar. Li Zhisui, Mao Zedong's private physician was a privileged man. On October 1, 1949, he was allowed to stand on the rostrum of Tiananmen Square to attend the ceremonies of the foundation of the People's Republic of China.
It was a 'crisp, clear, and chilly day that makes autumn in Beijing the most magnificent season' recalled the doctor. Li described the moment the Great Helmsman appeared on the stage: "Mao was a truly magnetic force. Mao's voice was soft, almost lilting, and the effect of his speech was riveting. 'The Chinese people have stood up', he proclaimed, and the crowd went wild, thundering in applause, shouting over and over, 'Long Live the People's Republic of China!' I was so full of joy my heart nearly burst out of my throat, and tears welled up in my eyes. I was so proud of China, so full of hope, so happy."
Sixty years later, China has become a power to reckon with. Napoleon Bonaparte is supposed to have pronounced the famous sentence: "When China awakes, the world will tremble" China being fully awake today, the world has begun trembling. Certain aspects of the Middle Kingdom's rise to a superpower are indeed scary.
This nationalism has been exacerbated by the economic rise of China and the success of the Beijing Olympics Games. For the past 60 years, the People's Republic of China has failed to introduce a modern system of governance. Though the word people's is recurrent in all state institutions in China, since 1949 the nation is run by a single party. Ordinary people have no say in state affairs.
National People's Congress chairman Wu Bangguo recently declared that China will 'never go down the devious path' of 'western institutions'. Whether Beijing agrees to it or not, human rights, basic personal laws or universal suffrage are today values accepted by all non-rogue nations.
Today, when intellectuals speak up, they are immediately arrested. In 2008, hundreds of writers, intellectuals and professors who signed a manifesto called Charter '08 (asking the CCP leadership to allow the people of China to enjoy civil rights enshrined in United Nations covenants), were harassed, some even jailed. Liu Xiaobo, the leader of the Charter '08 movement has himself been incarcerated. As long as this issue is not tackled, China cannot rise to the top. In such cases, it appears that it is the communist leadership which is trembling.
Another issue that makes Beijing tremble is the 'unrest in nationalities areas'. In March/April 2008, the Tibetan Autonomous Region as well as the Tibetan inhabitants regions of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan witnessed the worst unrest and riots in 50 years.
In July 2009, it was the turn of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, to be in the news. Violence erupted, resulting in at least 200 people dead and some 1,000 wounded. A parallel with Tibet was immediately made. As on the Roof of the World, tensions have not been a new phenomenon in a Muslim province, which has been flooded by millions of Han settlers over the past decades.
The regime in Beijing seems incapable of striking the right note. A report prepared by a group of Chinese lawyers, the Beijing Gongmeng Consulting on the 2008 riots in Tibet is an eye-opener. The lawyers point out 'major errors in government policy' after the March–April 2008 protests. One was encouragement of racist sentiment towards Tibetans: "The excessive response of the government all over Tibet was to regard every tree and blade of grass as a potential enemy soldier."
For the past 50 years the CCP has been unable to deal with these problems; for example, the negotiations with a good-willed Dalai Lama have never even taken off. The Chinese leadership is so nervous that they barred foreigners from travelling to Tibet until the end of the 60th anniversary celebrations. AFP reported that an official of the Lhasa Tourism Bureau explained: "Passes for foreign travellers to enter Tibet will be suspended from September 24 to October 8."
Li Datong, a former reporter from China Youth Daily recently told the German daily Handelsblatt that the authorities are even afraid to speak about the Berlin Wall which fell 20 years ago; he said that it could be: "causing people to associate anything in their minds… The fall of the Berlin Wall associates with the collapse of the regime." The journalist-turned dissident added: "China is experiencing a credibility crisis, the likes of which has never been seen before …People no longer believe what the government says."
The leadership seems caught in a vicious circle, the more they act tough, the more they loose their credibility. Willy Lam of the Jamestown Foundation in an essay entitled China's Quasi-Superpower Diplomacy: Prospects And Pitfalls, affirmed: "The CCP leadership's refusal to give up Maoist norms such as the 'party's absolute leadership over the armed forces' …has dented the global appeal of the China model — and detracted from the viability of Beijing's quasi-superpower diplomacy."
One could ask: where is the enemy for Beijing? The Economic Times in London answers that it is India: "Curiously, the enemy most often spoken of is India. The censors permit alarmingly frank discussion on the Internet of the merits of a war against India to secure the Tibetan plateau." The ET quotes an unnamed contributor: "Help the Maoists take over power in India to pay them back for hosting the Dalai Lama". It is strange, India till recently was considered as a 'paper tiger'.
Perhaps more alarming for Beijing, are the dissensions inside the politburo. It has recently been reported that Xi Jinping, the Chinese vice-president was not elevated as expected to the all-powerful Central Military Commission.
Why? Nobody knows. Glasnost (transparency) has never been the forte of the Middle Kingdom. 'Transparency' has not permeated as yet the opaque leadership of the CCP. The Chinese heir-apparent is the son of Xi Zhongxun, one of the senior-most leaders of the First Generation of the CCP. Very close to the late Panchen Lama, Old Xi wrote the official report on the famous 70,000 character petition from the Panchen Lama to premier Zhou Enlai. In 1962, he fell out of favour; he was accused of disloyalty to Mao. Was he not tough enough with the Tibetan people? Who knows? During the next 60 years, China has a lot of progress to make in these fields and many others.
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Sixty gun salutes fired to honor 60th anniversary of New China
A solemn flag-raising ceremony and 60-gun salutes kicked off a grand celebration in central Beijing Thursday morning to mark the 60th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders joined about 200,000 paraders, soldiers, students and dignitaries for the big day of New China on Tian'anmen Square.
The 440,000-square-meter square, overlooked by a huge south-facing portrait of late Chairman Mao Zedong on Tian'anmen Rostrum, was packed with flower-holding youngsters, solemn guards, performers dressed in colorful clothes, and numerous police to safeguard a tight security.
A total of 56 red columns were erected on the east and west sides of the square, which represented the 56 ethnic groups in China. Sixty huge lantern-shaped balloons over the square were also in red color, which symbolize auspice and happiness according to Chinese tradition.
At 10 a.m., Liu Qi, secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), announced the start of the grand rally.
Amid 60 gun salutes, a squad of 200 armed police in olive green uniforms walked down the platform of the Monument to the People's Heroes in the center of the square, carrying a furled flag and marching northward on a red carpet toward the national flag post.
The guards walked a total of 169 steps, which symbolized 169 years since 1840, a watershed in China's history when the country lost the Opium War with Britain. That eventually led to the scramble of Western power in China.
The founding of the People's Republic ended China's history of being humiliated by outside forces. The country now is emerging asa major political and economic power in the international stage.
President Hu, flanked by former president Jiang Zemin, top legislator Wu Bangguo, Premier Wen Jiabao and other leaders and invited guests, stood in the balcony of Tian'anmen Rostrum overlooking the packed square.
While the five-star red flag was being hoisted, the crowd sang in chorus with the 1,300-member military band playing the national anthem.
The events for the big day were also watched nationwide via live TV and online broadcast.
President Hu, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, is expected to review the Chinese troops shortly.
This will be followed by a military parade and a mass pageant which is set to showcase major achievements and growing strength of the 1.3 billion-people socialist country.
On Oct. 1, 1949, Chairman Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China, after the Kuomintang government lost a civil war and retreated to Taiwan.
Following decades of socialist construction, political upheavals and economic ups and downs, particularly as a result of transition to market economy since the late 1970s, China now emerges as the world's third largest economy in terms of gross domestic product.
Participated by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), the People's Armed Police Force (PAPF), military reserves and militia, the military parade will be a debut of China' s new weaponry and enhanced defense strength.
Some of China-made sophisticated weaponry, including cruise missiles, early warning aircraft and new battle tanks, will be the centerpiece of the parade, the 14th of this kind since 1949.
More than 150 jet-fighters, bombers, helicopters and other aircraft are to fly over Tian'anmen Square.
Along Chang'an Avenue, the east-west thoroughfare across downtown Beijing, dozens of temporary floral "sculptures" were setup, with red flags and colorful banners hung on street lamp poles and buildings to create a festive atmosphere.
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China eyes superpower status on its 60th anniversary
Indian and Chinese military delegations will meet on Thursday at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. It will be the first meeting between the militaries of the two countries following reports of recent tension and incursions by China's People's Liberation Army along the border.
But October 1 is also a day for celebration in China as the country will celebrate the 60th anniversary of foundation of the People's Republic of China. Grand celebrations have been planned to mark the occasion with President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao attending the official ceremonies in Beijing.
"We are at a new historical starting point. Forty years from now, we will be celebrating the centenary of new China. By that time, a modernised socialist country, prosperous, democratic, harmonious and culturally advanced, will stand firm in the east of the world," said Jiabao on the eve of 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.
In Beijing flags and buntings were out but large parts of the city were off limits to its citizens for security reasons. Armoured vehicles were deployed at sensitive locations with black clad armed police omnipresent but people didn't seem to mind.
"I think China is the safest country in the world. But we cannot rule out the possibility of chaotic situations arising," said a Beijing resident Sun Peipei.
Officials would not say where the threat could come from but recent disturbances in Xinjiang where nearly 200 people died and last year's unrest in Tibet have made the authorities cautious.
Nevertheless the celebrations have been planned on a grand scale with parades and fireworks.
"I feel like we are blessed because we are not living in the troubled times. We should cherish our current life," another Beijing resident Liu Qiansuan added.
The celebrations have been planned to showcase China's rise from civil war and wrenching social and political change to an emerging superpower.
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Sources:
The Guardian
ReutersThe Sun Daily (Malaysia)
BBC
The Hindu
The Indian Express
Xinhua
IBN Live
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