The U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence has posted a 144-page handbook on the history, structure, and doctrines of the Chinese Navy. Defense News reporter Christopher P. Cavas writes that the handbook is “intended to ‘foster a better understanding’ of the PLAN, according to William Tarry, director of the Naval Analysis Directorate. In the handbook’s preface, Terry says that the handbook is not an analysis of trends or intent, but is meant to educate and inform readers ‘during this time of greater contact’ between the U.S. Navy and the PLAN.” I flipped through the handbook and the only thing that really helped me to “foster a better understanding” was the oath all Chinese soldiers and sailors must make before entering the service, which is included in the handbook’s text.
I am a member of the People’s Liberation Army. I promise that I will follow the leadership of the Communist Party of China, serve the people wholeheartedly, obey orders, strictly observe discipline, fight heroically, fear no sacrifice, loyally discharge my duties, work hard, practice hard to master combat skills, and resolutely fulfill my missions. Under no circumstances will I betray the motherland or desert the army.
Compared that with the oath an American servicemen must make:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
Americans swear to a higher power that they will support and defend the Constitution–the symbol of democracy and the rule of law. Chinese promise fealty to the leadership of the Communist Party. The difference between the two, if I can draw on the pop culture debate of the moment, is not unlike that between the Spartans and Persians in Zack Snyder’s 300. Victor Davis Hanson wrote of the movie that
The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece. They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their feet than live on their knees.
If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus–who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.
