China in the Shadows

[GRG55]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

...The parade was meant to demonstrate that the PRC has a military heft commensurate with its ambitions … and that Xi Jinping is an effective steward of this mission.

And it did a pretty good job.
Peter Lee runs the China Matters blog. He writes on the intersection of US policy with Asian and world affairs.

LOL. Parading missiles and tanks around the main square of the capital city to stir the emotions of the masses. A sure sign China is still an adolescent nation...

[Chris Coles]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

LOL. Parading missiles and tanks around the main square of the capital city to stir the emotions of the masses. A sure sign China is still an adolescent nation...

Having, on the one hand, read, I must add with great interest, Gold Warriors, America's secret recovery of Yamashita's Gold by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; and on the other, watched entranced such Japanese movies as 13 Assassins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_Assassins which show in vivid detail the medieval mindset of the ruling class of Japan in relatively recent history; one can believe that any leader in China would have deep misgivings about Japan and the US.

China, as also the US and its allies need to see history as an ongoing development; where nations improve over time. For good example, here in the UK, the leaders of the nation during the middle ages, thought nothing about allowing a large force of Knights on horseback running amok throughout France killing and destroying at will. The point being, we moved on to become much more peaceful; again, arguably through the application of a new thing called "The Law", with law devised by and for the people; and by people, I mean the common people; not just for those who perceive they are the "rulers" of the people.

On the one hand, the US has reverted to a medieval mindset that requires subordination of others; a very good example being their proudly proclaiming development of a weapons system designed to deliver a weapon to ANY point of the surface of the planet. To my mind, that was an open declaration of war against the rest of the planet. Again, not to disregard the subordination of the UK to the status of "Vassal" nation in defence technology with the imposition of the Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty, duly making it impossible for the UK to ever again develop their own unique defence technology. So it is no wonder that the likes of China are developing their own warfare capabilities.

If there is a challenge ahead for China, it has to recognise that long term history points towards the need to move on with their attitude towards their own people within their nation; that the single party structure CCP no longer has the necessary credibility to ensure a change from a medieval mindset; always at war; to a more modern one where the state no longer regards the people as something to fear. Indeed, they have a chance to show the US where they are going wrong, by so moving on.

China will never become a true world leading nation without learning; not to fear their own people.

[don]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

LOL. Parading missiles and tanks around the main square of the capital city to stir the emotions of the masses. A sure sign China is still an adolescent nation...

I see what you mean . . . .

[Woodsman]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Having, on the one hand, read, I must add with great interest, Gold Warriors, America's secret recovery of Yamashita's Gold by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave...

It is difficult for me to overstate the importance of "Gold Warriors" to a meaningful understanding of deep political structures. I find myself going back to Gold Warriors again and again, considering it something of a Rosetta Stone for the Cold War period.

The cruelty of the Japanese should surprise no one, certainly not us 20th Century folks. Less well known is the American collaboration with the same criminal elements of Japan that waged war on the USA and was responsible for genocide and looting in Asia on a scale previously not seen. And most will dismiss out of hand - regardless of the gigabytes of documentation Seagraves provides - that these vast treasures looted by the Nazis and the Japanese were turned into a secret cloak and dagger slush funds to bribe foreign officials, fund covert operations and acquire media companies throughout the world. I suggest complementing Seagraves with the work of Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott. Just be sure to take your blood pressure pills or a shot or two of Scotland's finest beforehand.

While I do wish more people would read this sort of work, who wants to have their treasured illusions destroyed? Really, unless that's what one seeks, better to turn on the TV or open a tabloid. It's not as if there is anything anyone anywhere can do about it. Just ask Norbert Schlei.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Chalmers Johnson's review of "Gold Warriors" in The London Review.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/chalmer...ooting-of-asia

[touchring]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

If there is a challenge ahead for China, it has to recognise that long term history points towards the need to move on with their attitude towards their own people within their nation; that the single party structure CCP no longer has the necessary credibility to ensure a change from a medieval mindset; always at war; to a more modern one where the state no longer regards the people as something to fear. Indeed, they have a chance to show the US where they are going wrong, by so moving on.

China will never become a true world leading nation without learning; not to fear their own people.

Without the knowledge of it's citizens, the US govt is currently engaged in a covert sabotage against Europe. Ukraine, Syria, refugees fleeing Syria swarming all over Europe and soon Britain.

As for the reason, some say it is to defend the Dollar. A weakened Europe will boost the Dollar?

Note that I'm not saying this to defend China. China is an autocratic system so it remains to be seen how China can show the US where they are going wrong. We need a third power to come into picture.

[Chris Coles]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Without the knowledge of it's citizens, the US govt is currently engaged in a covert sabotage against Europe. Ukraine, Syria, refugees fleeing Syria swarming all over Europe and soon Britain.

As for the reason, some say it is to defend the Dollar. A weakened Europe will boost the Dollar?

Note that I'm not saying this to defend China. China is an autocratic system so it remains to be seen how China can show the US where they are going wrong. We need a third power to come into picture.

Totally agree. As I see it, the only viable way forward is to keep pressing the debate; we desperately need a third power to come into the picture.

[don]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Totally agree. As I see it, the only viable way forward is to keep pressing the debate; we desperately need a third power to come into the picture.

Not necessarily - nobody here champions the old SU Politburo - but it did provide a brake to US hubris, even at times fostering a "who's aid is best for (select) Third World countries" competition. Could the US be at war in at least 7 countries, back in the Cold War daze? Certainly not in the hyper-geopolitical Middle East and Afghanistan/Ukraine.

[touchring]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Not necessarily - nobody here champions the old SU Politburo - but it did provide a brake to US hubris, even at times fostering a "who's aid is best for (select) Third World countries" competition. Could the US be at war in at least 7 countries, back in the Cold War daze? Certainly not in the hyper-geopolitical Middle East and Afghanistan/Ukraine.

The SU no longer exists and Russia is no longer a superpower. And besides, Russia's dictatorship can't be the role model for any country.

In my opinion, the UK and democratic Commonwealth states such as emerging India can surface as the third power that can gradually influence China politically. The UK and China have a lot more in common than we usually think. The UK is described as the nation of shopkeepers, and China also has a capitalist culture for a very long time, albeit with "chinese characteristics" or autocratic.

Both cultures are more interested in trade than war. That is not to say that they don't wage war, but at least not over silly ideologies or over religion.

This is not a new idea, I believe it is already moving in that direction.

[touchring]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Here's my novice opinion on the state of China's economy.

I think the real reason for the disparate views on the state of China's economy is because economic growth figures (whether real or fake) may not provide an accurate picture of the state of economy of a developing country.

For a mature economy like the US, economic growth = lower unemployment, higher total output and moderate inflation.

For a developing economy that is in a state of flux, the real state of the economy cannot be measured accurately by these gross economic figures.

As we all know, China is evolving from a manufacturing and infrastructure intensive economy to a more service based economy. In the process, there will be widespread structural unemployment and even bankruptcy in certain industries. On the other hand, industries like clean technology, ecommerce, automation, robotics, bioscience, healthcare will still be growing. Depending on which industry you're in, you may still be doing ok and maybe even prosper such as clean tech, ecommerce and automation.

Another feature unique to China is different parts of China are in different stages of economic development, so while some coastal cities maybe overbuilt, many inland cities are still in process of urban renewal. These inland cities don't get the attention of MSM, so we don't get to read about them. Even bankers visiting China will not know about them as they usually go to only Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen.

I'm not saying that China's economy is doing well. I don't believe in the 7% growth figures either, but I think a rebound will be quick, in less than 3-4 years, as businesses and laid off people re-orientate themselves to the new economy.

[don]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Here's my novice opinion on the state of China's economy.

I think the real reason for the disparate views on the state of China's economy is because economic growth figures (whether real or fake) may not provide an accurate picture of the state of economy of a developing country.

For a mature economy like the US, economic growth = lower unemployment, higher total output and moderate inflation.

For a developing economy that is in a state of flux, the real state of the economy cannot be measured accurately by these gross economic figures.

As we all know, China is evolving from a manufacturing and infrastructure intensive economy to a more service based economy. In the process, there will be widespread structural unemployment and even bankruptcy in certain industries. On the other hand, industries like clean technology, ecommerce, automation, robotics, bioscience, healthcare will still be growing. Depending on which industry you're in, you may still be doing ok and maybe even prosper such as clean tech, ecommerce and automation.

Another feature unique to China is different parts of China are in different stages of economic development, so while some coastal cities maybe overbuilt, many inland cities are still in process of urban renewal. These inland cities don't get the attention of MSM, so we don't get to read about them. Even bankers visiting China will not know about them as they usually go to only Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen.

I'm not saying that China's economy is doing well. I don't believe in the 7% growth figures either, but I think a rebound will be quick, in less than 3-4 years, as businesses and laid off people re-orientate themselves to the new economy.

A number of good points. I would add the displacement of tens of millions of peasants into the cities, never an easy transition, with other countries experience hardly flattering, including the US.

[don]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

China’s Response to Stock Plunge Rattles Traders

点击查看本文中文版 Read in Chinese
By EDWARD WONG, NEIL GOUGH and ALEXANDRA STEVENSONSEPT. 9, 2015

BEIJING — The police have been dropping in on investment firms and downloading their transaction records. Senior executives at China’s biggest investment bank have been arrested on suspicion of illegal trading. A business journalist has been detained and shown apologizing on national television for writing an article that could have hurt the market.


The Communist Party’s response to China’s monthslong stock market crisis has been swift and forceful. In addition to spending as much as $235 billion to buy shares and bolster prices, the authorities have imposed a range of extraordinary restrictions on the sale of stocks — and backed them with the full weight of a security apparatus usually more focused on political dissent than equity trades.

The strategy appears to have succeeded, at least for now, in softening the impact of the Chinese market’s biggest rout since the global financial crisis of 2008. But the new limits on trading and the efforts by the police and regulators to enforce them have unsettled investors at home and abroad who are unsure exactly what types of transactions are being banned or criminalized.

After decades of watching China make slow but steady progress in building Western-style financial markets, many are now asking whether the party is reversing course — and whether Chinese officials are willing to tolerate the sometimes turbulent waves of selling that are inherent to such markets.

“What’s happening in China is definitively spooking people,” said Dawn Fitzpatrick, the chief investment officer of O’Connor, a $5.6 billion hedge fund owned by UBS. “They’ve set themselves back a couple of years” in terms of attracting investment, she added.

Anxiety in the industry surged last week after Li Yifei, the prominent China chief of the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund, disappeared and Bloomberg News reported that she had been taken into custody to assist a police inquiry into market volatility. Her employer, the London-based Man Group, did little to dispel fears, declining to comment on her whereabouts.

Ms. Li resurfaced on Sunday and denied that she had been detained, saying that she had been in “an industry meeting” and “meditating” at a Taoist retreat. But many in the finance sector are unconvinced.

“There is, generally, a very nervous atmosphere, as people wait to see the outcome of some of these investigations and how deep the rabbit hole goes,” said Effie Vasilopoulos, a partner at the Hong Kong office of the Sidley Austin law firm who works with hedge funds that invest in mainland China. “How wide a net is the government going to cast in terms of looking at foreign firms and their operations — not just onshore, but also offshore as well?”

The authorities are canvassing industry players in several cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Police officers under the Chinese Ministry of Public Security specializing in economic crimes have joined agents from the nation’s securities regulator on inspections of investment funds and brokerage firms. The authorities are combing records and questioning transactions that appear to profit from or contribute to a falling market, according to employees of investment firms who, like others who spoke anonymously, said they feared reprisals.

Police officers have downloaded extensive trading data and asked fund managers why they sold shares when the market was going down, prompting discussions about basic investment strategy. Officers have bluntly told some fund managers to just stop selling.

While regulators and law enforcement elsewhere in the world routinely meet with investment companies to monitor trading for potential abuse and illegal activity, they seldom do so with the aim of steering the direction of the markets.

The government has offered few details about the various investigations, contributing to the atmosphere of uncertainty. In late August, it announced the arrests of eight executives at state-owned Citic Securities, the country’s largest brokerage firm and investment bank, including four members of its senior management, on suspicion of insider trading.

At least four other brokerage firms said last month that they were being investigated by regulators for failing to properly identify their clients.

While insider trading is common in China’s relatively opaque markets, the investigations also serve the government’s short-term goal of discouraging sales and stabilizing prices, said Chris Powers, a senior consultant at Z-Ben Advisors, a financial consulting firm in Shanghai. “Is this more about limiting supposed market manipulation, or is it about sending a message to the market as a whole and using these cases as examples?” he asked.

Starting in the middle of last year, China’s markets enjoyed a breathtaking rally driven by record levels of margin financing, or borrowing to invest in stocks, and strong signals of government support, including cheery reports on the bull market in official news outlets like People’s Daily. But the Shanghai composite index has fallen 37 percent since the sell-off began in June, and the government has intervened directly and repeatedly in an attempt to support prices.

The measures include restrictions on short-selling, or betting that stocks will fall. Regulators in the United States took similar action for a month at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, but the Chinese authorities have been vague about what kinds of transactions have been prohibited and for how long. The police have said they are investigating “malicious” short-selling but have not said what that entails.

The crackdown on short-selling and other trading strategies has been particularly disruptive for hedge funds, which depend on such trades to balance risks and limit losses.

“They seem to be harassing anybody that they thought was selling or was short,” said one hedge fund manager in Hong Kong who does not have investments on the mainland. “Hello, it’s a hedge fund — they are long and short — but China is only looking at the short side.”

The government has also suspended initial public offerings and prohibited investors who own more than 5 percent of a company from selling shares.

While central banks in the United States, Europe and Japan have used unconventional monetary policy in recent years to stimulate growth and lift markets, China’s intervention has been more direct, with the government ordering brokerage firms to contribute to a bailout fund. In a report this week, analysts at Goldman Sachs estimated that entities directed by the Chinese government have spent about 1.5 trillion renminbi, or $235 billion, buying shares to support the market.

While opening its wallet, the state is also wielding a cudgel. At the end of August, Wang Xiaolu, a journalist for the respected financial newsmagazine Caijing, was detained by the police and shown on state television apologizing for an article suggesting the government might scale back its bailout of the market. Nearly 200 others have been punished in a special police campaign against “spreading rumors,” including some detained for discussing the stock market.

Censors have ordered the Chinese news media to avoid any reporting that might result in a market sell-off. With the economy growing at its slowest pace in a quarter-century and the party leadership worried about social unrest, discussion of the markets can draw official scrutiny almost as quickly as political speech.

“Like many other bad ideas, the Chinese have finally adopted the Western practice” of discouraging financial critics and banning short-selling when markets turn down, said James S. Chanos, the prominent American short-seller who has bet on a downturn in China for more than five years. “It has never worked here, and does not appear to be working there, either.”

One hedge-fund manager based in Hong Kong said that he was cashing out most of the nearly $500 million he has invested in the mainland because of fears that his money could get tied up by new rules, with no legal recourse. “I’m worried about more systemic risks” and “the witch hunt that is going on,” he said.

Another fund manager, in Singapore, said his colleagues in China were finding ways to take vacations outside of China because of a perception in the industry that the environment was becoming increasingly hostile.

The state news media has stoked the flames in the campaign against short-sellers, hedge funds and other investors, especially foreign ones. In July, the official newspaper of China’s state banks, Financial News, ran an editorial that accused Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and other foreign investment banks of trying to cause a market “stampede” and said that outsiders wanted to prevent China from becoming a strong financial power.

Another article, on the popular Chinese website Sina, criticized Citadel Securities, a Chicago-based investment firm. One of the firm’s accounts in China was among a group of 34 that officials suspended in July and August for suspicious automated trading activity.

Though foreign investors are being singled out, only about 1 percent of China’s $6.4 trillion domestic market value is owned by such investors, according to estimates by UBS, the investment bank.

In recent years, some financial officials and regulators have started developing more sophisticated investment tools for the Chinese stock market, like futures and derivatives. But regulators are unlikely in the current environment to continue with such experiments, analysts said. On Sept. 2, China’s futures exchange, an important platform for hedging, announced new restrictions that quickly led to a severe drop in trading volume.
“Now we’re seeing the regulators trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle,” said Victor Shih, a political economist at the University of California, San Diego, who has worked for a hedge fund.

“For investors, if you can’t hedge, it makes it hard to mitigate any sort of risk,” he added, arguing that would “ultimately limit the wealth of the equities market” in China.

Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research, which analyzes the Chinese economy for investors, said the restrictions on selling had turned the Chinese stock market into “a roach motel for capital.”

“You can enter,” she said, “but if you want to leave, you have to be really fleet about it because you’re mostly not going to get out.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/world/asia/in-china-a-forceful-crackdown-in-response-to-stock-market-crisis.html?ref=asia&_r=0

[don]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Contemporary fiscal management . . . .

regulators and law enforcement elsewhere in the world routinely meet with investment companies to monitor trading for potential abuse and illegal activity, they seldom do so with the aim of steering the direction of the markets.

In late August, it announced the arrests of eight executives at state-owned Citic Securities, the country’s largest brokerage firm and investment bank, including four members of its senior management, on suspicion of insider trading.

The measures include restrictions on short-selling, or betting that stocks will fall. Regulators in the United States took similar action for a month at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, but the Chinese authorities have been vague about what kinds of transactions have been prohibited and for how long.

While central banks in the United States, Europe and Japan have used unconventional monetary policy in recent years to stimulate growth and lift markets, China’s intervention has been more direct, with the government ordering brokerage firms to contribute to a bailout fund.

In recent years, some financial officials and regulators have started developing more sophisticated investment tools for the Chinese stock market, like futures and derivatives. But regulators are unlikely in the current environment to continue with such experiments, analysts said.

with Chinese characteristics . . . .

[don]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Meanwhile, back to fun and games, China does have a lot of catching up to do . . . there's yuan to be made

The NFL and the military: a love affair as strange and cynical as ever

Jeb Lund

This is the power of the NFL: it can brand something you respect into something nauseous. I have a lifelong fascination with the military: my grandfathers were pilots in WWII, one also in Korea. My stepfather, a man I love and respect, only retired from the Air Force this decade. I attended high school near Eglin Air Force Base, living out near Range Road, where you could sit on your roof at night and watch the bomb tests light up the underside of clouds. Most of my friends’ dads were in the service.

But just like that friend’s dad who got in your face all OORAH about how you could never dare question him (on anything) when you knew in reality that he ran Quicken for the 101st Chairborne, doing sorties on Excel columns, the NFL doesn’t have an off switch on its deployment of big words like battle and sacrifice. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell glad-handing veterans who’ve lost something, smirking under a flyover, is another avatar of the rear-echelon dudes who spent their Iraq War scanning the base doppler for tornados in the midwest and up-armoring their word rage to combat the “libturd” War on Christmas, daring you to question those who do their duty. The NFL is in the business of not being questioned, and the troops are its favorite accessory.

Complaints about the creeping militarization of the NFL are almost as old as complaints about how current finesse dynasties always get the defensive pass interference calls, and their ubiquity reduces them to the angsty hum of a punk band tuning all their guitars to drop-D. But this last year reified the issue as something worthy of consideration to more than just teens hoping to annoy dad. The NFL, which swaddles itself in camouflage to honor the troops, allowed 14 teams to charge the Department of Defense $5.4m for the privilege of their own honor, over four years.

That the NFL found a way to monetize patriotism shouldn’t surprise anyone; the only surprise is how efficiently and directly they did it. This sort of behavior is par for the course with the NFL. Every October, it puts its athletes in pink shoes, pink towels, gives refs pink penalty flags and sells “authentic” alternate pink jerseys to promote breast cancer awareness. The proceeds from these sales do not go breast cancer research, and what little escapes the wholesaler, distributor and retailer goes toward promoting screening and awareness. The NFL doesn’t directly profit, but its friends do.

Last year, facing tremendous blowback for suspending Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice a mere two games after knocking out his then-fiancée Janay on tape, the NFL rolled out No More, its domestic violence partner. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, No More does absolutely nothing, apart from vaguely aspirational things about “awareness”, which is corporate-speak for “results- and effort-free tax deduction”. Although you can buy merchandise!

Crossing the military-sports boundary is nothing new. George Carlin’s famous routine about the difference between baseball and football pays off so well because his description of football is laden with all the casual military metaphors self-important NFL commentators have injected into the game to make sure nobody dares take it anything less than deadly seriously.

Other sports have gotten in on the act for mercenary but at least more organic reasons. San Diego, a town dependent on its naval base for its prosperity, features regular troop acknowledgments at games, and Padres players take the field in camouflage uniforms. Tampa Bay, home to MacDill Air Force Base and CENTCOM, also sends out the Rays in camouflage uniforms and sets aside discount sections for active-duty servicemen. Both these teams struggle against the allure of the beach and vacation nightlife to fill seats, so their motives aren’t pure, but they are at least speaking to a significant local population that shapes the region.

Beyond teams with local military fanbases, Major League Baseball learned that releasing authentic camouflage jerseys and red-white-and-blue jerseys for Memorial Day and July 4th meant another vector for selling $140 garments that look and feel like grandpa’s old nightshirt designed to sweat out a fever.

But if these other developments are a bit mercenary, only the NFL feels like it’s fully embraced outright camouflage-washing. Take an embattled brand, wrap it up in Desert MARPAT and dare anyone to start jeering at it.

Goodell and company have – barring any generalized sense of competency that we’d ascribe to a functionally non-malignant business – proved that they are masters at a certain kind of craven canniness, and they and plenty of others have noticed the numerous opportunities for cynical capitalization. Far from the behavior of the founders (Washington, say, who deliberately patterned his life after Cincinnatus), or even of the Brokaw-dubbed Greatest Generation (in which roughly maybe one-sixteenth of personnel saw serious combat), we have nationally balked at applying any differentiation or critique to the roles of anyactive duty personnel in the Wars on Terror, Afghanistan, Iraq or ISIS. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes was broadly slammed for suggesting his discomfort at the overuse of hero, because that is the brand now.

What a boon environment for a “non-profit” cartel flush with billions that socializes the debts for new stadiums by plundering municipalities and then privatizing the profits, that threatens to lockout the laborers who give the sport its only reason for existence when they ask for a fraction more money to continue at jobs that give them potentially terminal brain damage. Yeah, that’s all bad, but what are you going to do, piss on troop Koop A Trooper from Camp McTrooperton? It’s hard to sneer at spectacle when it keeps being interrupted for guys with prosthetic legs surprising their families at midfield. “Dad!” “Hey, son! I’m not dead!” Or, to take a recent example, when the NFL arranges the heartwarming reunion of a soldier and his cheerleader wife. Nobody watching from the stands is likely to know that the former is a member of the obscenely wealthy Anheuser-Busch family, and the latter is a member of a well-connected political family.

The NFL is the only organization that responds to people’s wincing in awkward embarrassment as if it were some sort of cue that the embarrassing thing wasn’t done intensely or often enough, and they long ago went all-in on draping themselves in the blood and bones of others to attain some whiff of contact legitimacy. All the “FOOTBALL IS WAR” rhetoric might have started out as easy tropes for a lazy commentariat, but that stuff isn’t accidental anymore. That’s branding, and every flyover or unfurling of an America-shaped American flag by combat veterans is a deliberate, crass attempt to so wholly synonymize the fiscal upward-suction of the NFL with terms like valor, duty and honor. The more we salute the business’ use of soldiers, the more we render a predatory business unassailable. It’s brand synergy between the moneyed and profane and what we consider nationally sacred. It’s the same emotionally exploitative and cynical impulse that leads some fobbit to start waving his Green Zone Participation Medal in people’s faces to justify some hateful online rant about how the Brewton, Alabama, nativity scene is under attack by sharia disguised as liberals.

There is no level of stupid that can’t be camowashed, and the NFL knows it.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/sep/11/the-nfl-and-the-military-a-love-affair-as-strange-and-cynical-as-ever

[lakedaemonian]

Re: China's 70th Anniversary Parade

Having, on the one hand, read, I must add with great interest, Gold Warriors, America's secret recovery of Yamashita's Gold by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave; and on the other, watched entranced such Japanese movies as 13 Assassins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_Assassins which show in vivid detail the medieval mindset of the ruling class of Japan in relatively recent history; one can believe that any leader in China would have deep misgivings about Japan and the US.

China, as also the US and its allies need to see history as an ongoing development; where nations improve over time. For good example, here in the UK, the leaders of the nation during the middle ages, thought nothing about allowing a large force of Knights on horseback running amok throughout France killing and destroying at will. The point being, we moved on to become much more peaceful; again, arguably through the application of a new thing called "The Law", with law devised by and for the people; and by people, I mean the common people; not just for those who perceive they are the "rulers" of the people.

On the one hand, the US has reverted to a medieval mindset that requires subordination of others; a very good example being their proudly proclaiming development of a weapons system designed to deliver a weapon to ANY point of the surface of the planet. To my mind, that was an open declaration of war against the rest of the planet. Again, not to disregard the subordination of the UK to the status of "Vassal" nation in defence technology with the imposition of the Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty, duly making it impossible for the UK to ever again develop their own unique defence technology. So it is no wonder that the likes of China are developing their own warfare capabilities.

If there is a challenge ahead for China, it has to recognise that long term history points towards the need to move on with their attitude towards their own people within their nation; that the single party structure CCP no longer has the necessary credibility to ensure a change from a medieval mindset; always at war; to a more modern one where the state no longer regards the people as something to fear. Indeed, they have a chance to show the US where they are going wrong, by so moving on.

China will never become a true world leading nation without learning; not to fear their own people.

Gold Warriors is an interesting book.

I'b be interested to hear from our more credible members on the topic.

-----

As far as China(or any other sovereign state) goes, shouldn't they fear their own people?

Doesn't the LACK of fear by government of its people lead to more state excess than the opposite?