The People’s Liberation Army’s Navy – An Opinion
In China, the Army runs the Navy, because according to Mao, Navies are tools of imperialist running dogs, the lackeys of capitalist comprador overlords, etc. – blah/blah/blah. Long March – blah/blah/blah. But if the Army runs them, it makes all the difference…
There has been a lot of news about China’s ship building and its attempt to create a modern navy that can meet and defeat the US Navy in blue water. The Chinese do have small aircraft carriers on the order of the new British and French aircraft carriers. The Japanese are building them again to meet the Chinese threat. And given many decades more of experience, the Chinese Navy might be able to build, float and fight a genuine aircraft carrier.
As the British are learning (the hard way), an aircraft carrier with (in the case of the USA) a crew of 5,000 souls, and an air wing, is a very complex thing to build. It’s very much a melding of many humans and a possibly the most complex machine on Earth. It requires generational institutional knowledge to keep them going at a wartime tempo. The Chinese are struggling. Building the steel ship is complicated. Running it so that it can work in a combat tempo, is exceptionally daunting.
Black smoke was recently seen billowing from China’s first assault carrier docked at the PLA(N) base in Shanghai. The new Chinese carrier, which is similar to the U.S. Navy’s America Class assault carriers, is designed to carry helicopters and hovercraft to support amphibious landings. (presumably they will use them when they attack Taiwan) I’ve read some US Navy pundits chuckling about the incident. But the Chinese will continue to build these and other ships in the short term.
The long game requires Chinese prosperity. And they are worried. Before the pandemic, they were having a horrible year financially. The US was forcing a balance of trade or a threat of ruinously high tariffs. Post-pandemic, the way forward is murky. Japan is paying businesses to leave China, as you’ve no doubt heard. The US will be pushing businesses to return to North America and the US and vertically integrate the supply chain. I’m sure that rubber dog shit, plastic Christmas trees with lights, and other novelty items will still be made in China for export. 18% of China’s export market is the USA. But if you tack on the rest of Asia (which hates China), and Europe, that bends the curve.
China is not able to feed itself without imports. It must import oil, unless it claims the territory of other nations by force of arms (recall Japan, 1941) and steals their oil. Both of those factors along with every other will reduce their capacity to focus on a blue water Navy.
The Womyn’s Movement’s latest Howl:
“The pandemic is no time to forget about family abolition. In the words of feminist theorist and mother Madeline Lane-McKinley; ‘Households are capitalism’s pressure cookers. This crisis will see a surge in housework – cleaning, cooking, caretaking, but also child abuse, molestation, intimate partner rape, psychological torture, and more.’ Far from a time to acquiesce to ‘family values’ ideology, then, the pandemic is an acutely important time to provision, evacuate and generally empower survivors of – and refugees from – the nuclear household,” she adds.
I can only but wonder what sort of dark history these people have. I understand broken people. I do. However, giving these twisted freaks a voice beyond their own furious mutterings is a mistake.
Emiile’s Response (to the article above):
My youngest daughter, Emilie, practicing social distancing with my Glock 21. I doubt that anyone would want to mess with her or take liberties. She was not raised to be anyone’s victim. Emilie is the mother of an 8 month old boy… explain to her how she’d be so much happier if the family unit was dissolved. She has a temper, though. Explain from the next county, by semaphore.
The family is the glue that holds society together. PERIOD. And traditional family values are under assault. Abortion is celebrated by the “woke” and baby body parts are sold at a huge bounty. All that notwithstanding, the core of the nation is strong. Europe is not having enough children to replace itself. That was cited as a reason that Germany imported a million military age Muslim men. Europe is doomed.
Summer is Coming
Mark Twain never visited Yuma in the summer… I know this because he ranted about Texas in the summer and not Arizona.
“If I owned Hell and Texas, I’d live in Hell and rent out Texas.”
“When a person is accustomed to 128 in the shade, his ideas about cold weather are not valuable….In Texas, “cold weather” is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.”
Of course, I live at elevation where it rarely gets over 85 degrees (F).
I recall a story that I believe was told by Twain about an evil soldier who was stationed at Ft. Yuma. took sick, died, and went to Hell. A week later he returned for his blankets. I know, it was in California but not far enough to make a difference.
Mark Twain was a genius of great renown.
LL, what is the little knob like object hanging off the end of the glock’s slide?
If you have one hand disabled, you can’t rack the slide with only one hand. The handle allows you to use a belt, or other object to charge the weapon if you’re injured – with only one hand on the grip.
“The long game requires Chinese prosperity.” This.
Armed forces and wars are not cheap. Carrier group are really not cheap. Trump’s strategy, which the lunk head Chinese government has fallen for, will destroy their ability to project conventionally much beyond the first island chain. He’s much smarter than he appears.
Emilie’s boy has a ferocious protector and advocate on his side. Lucky kid.
Chinese land based aviation is available to the first island chain. A navy is useful there but not essential for defense. Power projection deep into the Pacific is a different problem for them. I’d rather see their navy sunk in shallower water to provide underwater habitats that can be visited easily by sport SCUBA enthusiasts. But my bias is peeking through, isn’t it?
Just the Dirty Harry glint and intensity of Miss Emilie’s eyes make me want to rethink any thoughts of mayhem and debauchery… add on any weapon she may possess and I may think of taking up knitting as a safe and quiet endeavor.
Avoid direct confrontation with Emilie on matters regarding her baby boy at all costs.
My compliments to you both. Our daughter is a patrol officer with Arlington, TX PD. On her first day at the range in the academy, an instructor walked over and asked her “Who taught you to shoot?”. Shortly after 9/11, she was the one (not her brothers) who asked if we could print up some Osama bin Laden targets for a trip to the range. So we did–we brought enough to pass out to everyone.
Emilie’s older sister held (and may still hold) the pull-up championship for the Riverside County (CA) Sheriff’s Academy (record for both genders). She had been a champion gymnast and could do pull ups with either or both arms, rapidly, until the instructors grew tired watching her.
Your daughter (and children) were trained correctly, RHT447. My compliments to you all. Having OBL targets, or other more contemporary enemy targets that I won’t mention on this blog…but they like expensive ice cream…and are only kept alive by the gin that they pickle themselves in and the demons that possess their bodies, etc.
Well it does get a bit hot here, must be said, but we are fairly free outside of Austin and Tarrant County Fort Worth.
Good work, Emilie!
As for the Marxist family abolitionists — well, look at the barrel.
It’s more humid in Texas than it is in Arizona. Except during monsoon, and then it can get very wet very quickly in AZ.
Another site said he is detecting a note of stridency in Chinese communications – you may have seen it already. He also said it’s making him a bit nervous.
Oh, they’re shrill. And they’re terrified. They raised the price of all personal protective equipment by 100% to funnel that money to the military, which relies on outside funding to keep the lights on. That will translate to payments by the rest of the world into PLA coffers. Until everyone else can make their own.
And yes it goes beyond that. The Chinese are very concerned that the rest of the world will give them a butcher’s bill…maybe cancel all debt owed to China? It everyone else agrees to that, what can China do? Suck it up buttercup.
Would be nice if everyone cancelled China’s debt. But someone will wimp out.
I have never, and will never, understand the Womyn’s movement.
*Of course, I live at elevation where it rarely gets over 85 degrees (F)*
Sometimes I wish we had done similar; but I’m over shoveling snow. Hubby showed me a video earlier this evening though, of someone shoveling snow with his tractor and a box blade. Now that would be interesting.
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