Blake Hall
China officially has no chill.
When the Chinese decided to mark the end of WWII with an opulent military parade and sent five naval vessels to lurk along the Alaskan coast to show off their military strength, we gave them the benefit of the doubt. China wants to be taken seriously as a military power just like every other large and wealthy nation, and we can’t begrudge them for that.
The appearance of this ridiculous animated video depicting the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) beating the snot out of America, however, is a little overboard.
Be sure to strap yourself in for this one.
You may now unstrap yourself and come back to reality.
Let’s unpack this.
The video starts from the perspective of a PLA soldier, who blinks awake Call of Duty-style after surviving foreign bombers ravaging a Chinese military base. Suddenly it abandons that simple soldier to sweep through a Chinese war room and show a fist hitting the table. The Chinese, that fist is trying to say, mean serious business.
Next we are treated to a montage of PLA assault vehicles rolling out, PLA aircraft firing missiles in slow motion and ground artillery launching something huge and phallic into the sky. We see all those missiles twirl through the air like synchronized swimmers before destroying an Okinawa-esque military base, a suspiciously F-22 and F-35-shaped aircraft and several navy American-like vessels.
The DF-21D ballistic missile, the rumored “carrier killer,” also makes an appearance as it reduces an American(ish) fleet to smithereens.
When the carnage finally ends five minutes later, light from the setting sun splashes across a billow Chinese flag surrounded by saluting patriots. The video truly represents wishful thinking at its finest.
Most news organizations have credited the PLA for making this video, though Foxtrot Alpha suggests that a Chinese gaming company might have had a hand in it too.
It’s also possible it was created by Chinese tech company Tencent, which owns QQ/QZone, a social microblogging/gaming platform. This would make sense given that it feels like a video game and even starts like one, albeit with the usual roles (West good/Commies bad) reversed.