Chinese parades show lack of confidence

ARTICLE: China Celebrates 60 Years of Communist Rule, By MICHAEL WINES and SHARON LaFRANIERE, New York Times, October 1, 2009

What I found interesting about the 60th anniversary celebration in China is how divorced it is from everything that's made China powerful in the last three decades.

Think about it: the PLA has nothing to do with China's rise, and honestly, it wasn't Party leadership that was the key either, but rather how much the Party backed off trying to run everything economically.

A weird disjunction, in my mind.

But Americans love parades, so we're duly impressed.

Still, I watch and I see a celebration of everything that's stood in the way of China's return to growth and prosperity.

But since the Chinese are so paranoid of the subject of the country's coherence, this security-blanket-style thinking won't end for a while.

I await the truly confident China to someday appear.

Comments

[Petrer]

I enjoy the irony of the parades because it is a show of how modern China must deal with its brutal past. It is somewhat similar to how we in the US had a very glossy view of our history, and the "intellectuals" of the new Left in the 60's brought it down to the ground, albeit very disingenuously. But I doubt anyone can bring some sort of equivalence between the two nations. Yes, we sucked, were hypocritical, but we were based on a liberal framework with great minds who new freedom comes slowly. The Chinese figured out their base was doomed by 1979, and the Chinese know they suck so much more. I'm waiting for all the anti-Chinese intellectuals in China to have their few decades, because ironically, it would be a sign of a freer China.