At 10 p.m. EDT on Thursday, 10 a.m. on Friday in Beijing, Xi Jinping will deliver one of the most important addresses of his now eight-year rule. It’s an address the American people might want to pay attention to. After all, Xi’s speech will be designed to prepare the Chinese people for possible war with the United States.
Evincing as much, Chinese state media is promising saturated coverage of Xi’s marking of the 70th anniversary of the “mission to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea.” Translation: the 70th anniversary of China’s entering the Korean War. Promising wall-to-wall coverage of Xi’s “important speech,” the People’s Daily newspaper notes that “China Central Radio and Television Station and Xinhuanet will broadcast live broadcasts of the conference. Central key news websites such as People’s Daily Online, CCTV, and China Net will be synchronized with new media platforms such as the People’s Daily client, Xinhua News Agency client, and CCTV News…” The speech appears to be required viewing for members of the People’s Liberation Army forces, so this can be considered a “we interrupt your broadcast…” level national event.
Speaking from the Great Hall of the People, Xi will praise the PLA for its role in fighting America. Considering China’s desire to persuade Europe that Beijing seeks only multilateral cooperation, I suspect Xi will play down the fact that China’s Korean War endeavor saw it pitted against the United Nations. Still, as noticed by one China observer, the event seems set to unveil the colors of the U.S. Army’s Regimental Combat Team-31. That American unit was annihilated after being surrounded at the legendary winter 1950 Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Outgunned, freezing, and surrounded by 10 times as many PLA forces, the battle saw extraordinary acts of heroism on the part of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps (one story from the battle offers the perfect history movie for 2021).
The flag’s appearance alongside Xi bears noting.
While the Korean War is central to contemporary PLA strategy formulation, Xi’s choice to make this speech amid captured U.S. Army colors is not one that will have been made lightly. The Chinese anticipate that Joe Biden will win in November but will be aware that this pageant will only reinforce the U.S. conception that China is a clear enemy of the U.S.-led liberal international order. By adjoining the captured colors to a call for new war readiness, Xi illustrates two truths.
First, that the otherwise paranoid leader of destiny feels it is necessary to tie his own national security identity to the banner of Mao’s great patriotic victory. The importance of the Korean War to the Chinese Communist Party psyche is pivotal. Communist China’s only post-Second World War experience of a major war, the Korean War offers the regime a source of propaganda evidence of enduring national purpose. Remembering the Korean War is to the party what July 4 is to Americans. A moment to make physical one’s patriotic spirit.
Second, Xi shows that the Politburo Standing Committee anticipates no serious respite to declining U.S.-China tensions even if its favored victor, Biden, wins on Nov. 3. Recognizing the Trump administration’s rising Quad-based deterrent alliance against China’s imperial militarism in the South China Sea, and its crackdown on Chinese feudal mercantilism, Xi sees stormy waters ahead. Thus recalling his people to a war that won a stalemate against America, Xi aims to encourage the masses that they can win in the coming great fight.
Tune in.
