Xi Says China to Cut Military Headcount by 300,000
Bloomberg News
September 3, 2015 — 10:22 AM AEST
Updated on September 3, 2015 — 12:42 PM AEST
* Russia's Putin attends, though many world leaders stay away
* Parade feature aircraft, ballistic missile launchers
China is committed to peaceful development and is no threat to its neighbors, President Xi Jinping told the world as he used the start of a military parade marking the end of World War II to announce the biggest military cuts in almost two decades.
“We Chinese love peace,” Xi, flanked by the Communist Party’s top brass including former Presidents Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, said in a televised speech. “No matter how much stronger it will become, China will never seek hegemony and expansion.”
Xi said that army personnel would be reduced by 300,000, the biggest cuts since 1997. The announcement foreshadows the most sweeping overhaul of the military in at least three decades, moving it closer to a U.S.-style joint command structure, people familiar with the matter said.
Wearing a traditional black Mao suit, Xi spoke under clear blue skies ahead of an event that gives him the opportunity to both showcase China’s military clout and distract attention from domestic problems like a slowing economy.
The pageant features 12,000 soldiers, almost 200 of China’s latest aircraft and mobile ballistic missile launchers capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the continental U.S. China will also showcase its DF-21D medium-range ballistic missile, known as a “carrier killer” because it would target aircraft carriers, the China News Service reported.
Before the speech Xi, alongside his wife Peng Liyuan, greeted dignitaries including Russian President Vladimir Putin, South Korean President Park Geun Hye and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Peng is a a major-general in the PLA and is well known in China as a singer of patriotic songs. Xi will give a speech around 10 a.m., followed by the parade.
Many world leaders declined invitations or sent lower-ranking officials to represent them. Putin, who hosted Xi at his own WWII victory parade in May, is the only state leader representing China’s wartime allies, with U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande staying home.
Ordinary Chinese aren’t permitted to attend the parade, which will be shown on television. On social media sites, some changed their avatar pictures to the national flag.
Authorities left nothing to chance ahead of the parade, ordering cars off the road and halting factories to limit pollution, and even deploying monkeys, falcons and dogs to scare birds from the flight path of the planes that will fly over the capital.
The decision to hold a parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the “Victory of the Chinese People’s Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War” gives Xi a chance to publicly demonstrate his dominance over Asia’s most powerful military. China traditionally puts on a military pageant every 10th anniversary of its founding in 1949. The war anniversary gave Xi the opportunity to have one four years early.
‘Undisputed Position’
“It reinforces Xi’s undisputed position as the paramount leader of the country,” said Oh Ei Sun, an analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore who was expected to attend the parade. “It represents the accumulation of everything he’s done over the past few years.”
Many world leaders declined invitations or sent lower-ranking officials to represent them. Putin, who hosted Xi at his own WWII victory parade in May, is the only state leader representing China’s wartime allies, with U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande staying home.
Xi’s message of peace may not resonate in the capitals of his neighbors. The country has been flexing its military muscle from the East China Sea, where it disputes territory with Japan, to the South China Sea, where its island-building program has given added impetus to military budget increases among Southeast Asian nations.
‘Grand Ceremony’
Some 49 dignitaries were expected to attend, according to the official People’s Daily. They included 30 heads of state and 19 senior government representatives.
To make sure the message gets across, the government curtailed TV programming that didn’t conform to theme of the parade or China’s victory in World War II. State media highlighted the event as a historic occasion.
“It will be a grand ceremony to connect China and the world, to convey a message of peace,” Xinhua said. “The ceremony is an embrace between a confident and open China and the world.”
Among the most prominent, South Korean President Park Geun Hye, a key U.S. ally, is working to draw China further away from North Korea and also arrange a three-way summit with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Slowing Economy
The parade also afforded Xi a chance to distract attention from a slowing economy, a stock-market rout that’s erased $5 trillion of value and the warehouse explosions in nearby Tianjin last month that killed at least 158.
“The party’s grip on power is potentially very fragile and the leadership is acutely aware of how quickly things came unstuck in the Soviet Union,” said Nick Bisley, a professor of international relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne.
“The party has really got to justify its existence in a more complex society and its has to deliver not just economic growth,” he said. “It has got to have people buy into the message and one of the crucial messages central to the party has been: We’re the only people keeping this show together.”
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Xi Says China to Cut Military Headcount by 300,000
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