Guns and poses: China's military front and centre for 70th anniversary parade Kirsty Needham October 1, 2019 — 6.20pm https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/g...-70th-anniversary-parade-20191001-p52woa.html Beijing: The leader of the Chinese Communist Party and the nation’s President, Xi Jinping, said there is no force that can stop China forging ahead, before inspecting a grand military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the party’s rule. Xi strode to the rostrum on Heavenly Peace Gate on Tuesday morning dressed in a charcoal Mao suit, with former leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao on either side. Tanks, drones and nuclear missiles stretched for blocks as they waited to file past Tiananmen Square. Chinese military planes fly in formation during a parade in Beijing to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of communist China.Credit:AP At least 12 of the nuclear DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles, never seen in public before, were mounted on trucks painted in camouflage markings. On the street outside The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s office at Jianguomen, the missiles ended and the colourful floats of a cultural parade waited. But unless they had a rare ticket for Tiananmen Square, Beijing residents were confined to their lounge rooms as streets closed and the city became a stage for the television spectacle. It was the only TV program shown on air. While a 'one country, two systems' float is shown during the People's Republic of China's seventieth-anniversary parade, violent protests continue to rage in Hong Kong. Xi, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, said in his speech that when founding party leader Mao Zedong stood in the same place 70 years earlier it was the end of “100 years of humiliation and misery” for Chinese people. “Today socialist China is standing with the rest of the world and there is no force that can shake the foundation of this brave nation, there is no force that can stop the Chinese people and nation from forging ahead.” Before the military parade started Xi drove in an open-top Hongqi limousine to inspect the troops, calling out “Comrades work hard!” Military vehicles form part of an honour guard to mark the 70th anniversary of communist China.Credit:AP The 15,000 soldiers and officers in the parade stood unblinking but smiling as they turned heads in unison as Xi passed. The strategic attack formation showcased the Dongfeng-17 hypersonic missile, known for precision strikes, the first time it has been shown in public. The air echelons began with 20 helicopters flying past in formation. The J-20 supersonic stealth fighters also flew by, among 12 air echelons and 160 aircraft. In the first military parade in 1949, only 70 planes could be found so they had been ordered to fly past twice. Participants in the celebration on Tuesday.Credit:AP Bates Gill, a Chinese military expert and professor of Asia-Pacific Security Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, said it wasn’t yet known if the DF-41 was ready to be deployed but its parade appearance could be interpreted as China saying its most powerful nuclear weapon, with an extremely long range, was ready. The DF-41 is the first Chinese missile that can reach the entire United States. It was the first Chinese ICBM that was mobile and used solid fuel, meaning it could be moved around by road and fired quickly. “It makes it more difficult for a first strike against China to succeed," Professor Gill said. "This is a big advantage for nuclear deterrence.” The DF-17 hypersonic missiles were new and significant because “they could probably defeat anti-missile defence systems because they move too fast”, he said. A Chinese military honour guard marches during the the celebration in Beijing on Tuesday.Credit:AP US missile defence systems rely on predicting the trajectory of a rocket, but the hypersonic missiles are designed to manoeuvre without a fixed trajectory. “They are an important development, but it's hard to judge just from the parade how far along they really are and what the PLA’s operational theory is – none of this is known,” Professor Gill said. “The Chinese message is we are moving ahead and finding ways to get around Western technology and defence systems.” He said China’s most interesting weapons were the missiles, because “relatively cheaply, they raise the stakes and complicate decision-making in times of war”. Chinese President Xi Jinping, centre with former presidents Jiang Zemin, right, and Hu Jintao, left.Credit:AP “The PLA are not ready to go toe-to-toe with the US Navy or US Air Force ... They have zero experience at sea battle or air battle in the 21st century, but they are developing missiles and asymmetric systems.” He said China was using its rocket experience to pose a deterrent to the US, because the missiles could be launched from mainland China and to attack them would mean an attack on Chinese soil, which dramatically raised stakes. Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam was among the dignitaries on the rostrum with Xi. In Hong Kong, police fired tear-gas as up to 100,000 protesters marched and there were clashes in four locations and 20 train stations were closed. A red alert to evacuate the Legislative Council was issued in the afternoon. In his speech, Xi said the central government remained committed to One Country, Two Systems, the deal that recognises Chinese sovereignty but allows special autonomy for Hong Kong. “We will maintain long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and Macau,” he said. But he restated the goal of the PRC was “the complete unification of our country”. Later, as a float praising One Country, Two Systems rolled past, Chinese TV cameras zoomed in on the Hong Kong policeman who had pulled out a Remington rifle and aimed it at protesters in a notorious incident outside a Hong Kong police station in July. The policeman has been feted as a hero by Chinese state media, while protesters in Hong Kong have called for an independent inquiry into police behaviour as riot police crack down on protests that have continued for 17 weeks. Xi waved as the civilian parade danced past, with floats recalling historical themes of the past seven decades. There were giant portraits of Mao, Deng Xiaoping, who had started to open China’s economy to the world after 1978, Jiang, and Xi himself. The flow of the march was disrupted for a bicycle performance that recalled pedal power was for many decades the dominant transport mode in Beijing, once known as the “bicycle kingdom”. Australian academic Colin Mackerras featured as a commentator alongside People's Liberation Army senior Colonel Zhou Bo on the Chinese state media broadcast for international audiences. Colonel Bo said the parade showed the PLA had come a long way from a weak force to being “so strong ... the days when China was bullied will be gone forever”. Colonel Bo said the drones on display highlighted China’s drive to improve its technology and artificial intelligence capability.
Four reasons why China will not be having a happy birthday A pigeon ban, a fireworks extravaganza and a huge military parade: China is pulling out all the stops to celebrate 70 years of communist rule this week. https://www.smh.com.au/business/the...-having-a-happy-birthday-20191001-p52wg0.html China has been pulling out all the stops to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China in Beijing.Credit:AP But Beijing's birthday bash is being overshadowed by the industrial powerhouse's worst economic growth for decades. Is the country's economic miracle finally coming to an end? From the factory floor to the shopping mall, China is looking like the weak link in the global economy. And it's not all President Donald Trump's fault. There are four reasons why China will not have a very happy birthday. Is China's mountain of debt about to topple over? Xi Jinping's government was attempting to slash China's huge debt piles before the trade spat with the US forced it to reverse course. Total debt as a percentage of GDP has surged to almost 280pc after Beijing abandoned its deleveraging plan. It is now encouraging banks to lend more to the private sector and has loosened curbs on local government debt to rescue its stalling economy. The worrying debt pile has caught the eye of top policymakers. In July's financial stability report the Bank of England warned of the risk growth in Chinese lending poses to the economy. A sustained acceleration in credit growth "could lead to renewed concerns around the sustainability of China's already elevated debt levels", it warned. The IMF is also concerned, saying that Beijing is "facing a difficult trade-off between supporting near-term growth in the face of adverse external shocks and containing the build-up of financial imbala In a speech in Chicago, the PM has urged China to admit it's new status as a developed economy and says the special treatment it gets with trade deals needs to be reviewed. Trump's trade war with China has helped persuade companies to move production out of the country - but factory work is not flooding back to the US. Instead, China's neighbours are benefiting most from American importers trying to avoid the tariffs as factory production splutters in the Asian powerhouse. Industrial -production growth in China suffered another shock drop to 4.4pc in August, the worst reading since 2002. This "substitution effect" has been "clearly evident" since late 2018 with American imports from South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam enjoying a boost, ING analysis has found. "We also have to consider that some of this slack may have been picked up by Mexico and the EU given expanding US deficits with those trade partners," explains James Knightley at ING. Shoppers squeal as pork prices soar and car sales plunge Chinese households are tightening their belts as they face the sharpest rises in food prices in more than seven years and confidence dwindles. The food consumer price index jumped 10pc year-on-year in August after the cost of pork - the country's favourite meat - more than doubled in a matter of months. The ongoing trade spat is casting an ominous shadow over the global economy. Credit:AP A third of China's pig stock has been wiped out by African swine fever, a disease that is spreading across Asia and sending local pork prices to record highs. Meanwhile, overall retail sales growth has stuttered to its lowest level since 2003, driven by plunging automotive sales. Car sales have moved down a gear in the world's largest market this year, dropping for the past 14 consecutive months. The fall has particularly ramped up the pressure on the German carmakers, such as BMW and Daimler, that generate more than a third of their sales in China. The retail sales slump - which has been more pronounced on big-ticket consumer items - appears to have been driven by "worsening consumer sentiment". Morale is unlikely to improve given that "conditions in the labour market remain weak", warns Mark Williams at Capital Economics. Beijing has let its currency slip to its lowest level in 11 years to help offset the impact of the US tariffs. Last week Yi Gang, head of China's central bank, dampened hopes of another large stimulus boost, insisting it is in "no hurry to take measures similar to central banks of other countries", such as big interest rate cuts or quantitative easing. Commerzbank has warned that Beijing could be worried about "initiating a boom-bust cycle that would cause considerable damage to the entire economy in the long term". Its analysis also found that huge tax cuts have failed to boost consumption. Xi will hope today's celebrations cheer Chinese households - but the festivities will do little to soothe fears over its fading economic miracle.
I'm like wtf is a pigeon ban? Sure enough though... they banned pigeons. https://qz.com/1709621/china-has-no-fly-zone-for-pigeons-ahead-of-70th-birthday-parade/
China has a history of brutally countering and stomping any thing not deemed beneficial for the state. This will not end well for HK’ers. And the world will watch snd do nothing.
House GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney's concern for Muslims is heartwarming , Trump congratulates China on 70 years of communist rule House GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney said the anniversary is “not a day for celebration,” pointing to the crackdown at Tiananmen Square 30 years ago and the Uighur Muslims who’ve been placed in concentration camps in western China. Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, also slammed China’s celebrations.
"Bird's of a feather...". It is fun though... all the personalities. Baron letting the politics section down here do its own thing unedited.... f'n genius. Cool too.