Chinese military parade shows peaceful security, not threat
- Source: Global Times
- [22:25 October 13 2009]
- Comments
The problem is that they consider China's form of government "aberrant" and do not really recognize China under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
"Red China" was an American bogeyman for many years, and China's lack of multi-party democracy still seems a "different species" to many Westerners.
China certainly would not give up developing its army and equipment, or stop the parade just because of the above-mentioned Western ideas. Even if China stops the military parade, the Western Cold War mentality would hardly vanish.
Chinese military development in the past decades did not take other countries' feeling into consideration. If China had done so, I am afraid nothing would have been achieved.
On the contrary, to eliminate their prejudice, we can only rely on further development, which also includes Chinese military development.
After having watched the parade, Kato Yoshikazu, a Japanese writer living in China, commented that it was like "lü" (to comb) the CPC's 60 years governing history. The verb he used, "lü," literally means to hold a strip-shaped object and to move along and touch something.
If Westerners can learn from Kato and "comb" the 60 years of Chinese military history, they shall understand China's object is to protect instead of to conquer.
Only when Chinese people were living peaceful lives could the current development be achieved. Meanwhile, with the development of China, a peaceful environment can be further ensured in East Asia, Asia and even the whole world.
In the past, China was weak and vulnerable, thus neither Asia nor the world could develop in harmony. Security and harmony could never have been realized if Chinese military power had stayed the same as in the 1950s.
The development of the Chinese military and hardware is normal. Any prosperous country in the world will strengthen its national defense at the same time. And any country with a flourishing economy and wealthy people will naturally have more advanced national defense capabilities.
This is normal practice. China is not, and should not be considered as, an exception.
We do not expect a high degree of recognition of Chinese military development from Westerners. However, we do hope that there will be more foreigners like Kato to "comb" Chinese history and Chinese military history. Only by doing so can they stop looking at China through a Cold War perspective.
The author is a senior editor of the People's Daily
