China’s military build-up ‘will prevent disasters such as second world war’
Nation's previous military weakness led to escalation of conflict, says PLA's official newspaper, ahead of commemorations to mark end of the war in 1945
China is building a stronger military as insurance against the country suffering the kind of disaster that befell it during the second world war, the army’s newspaper said on Friday as President Xi Jinping headed to Russia for war commemorations.
China’s military buildup, which includes developing stealth fighters and anti-satellite missiles, has unnerved the region and Washington, especially since Xi took office in 2013 and started taking a tougher line on maritime territorial disputes.
Sino-Japan relations have long been poisoned by what China sees as Japan’s failure to atone for its occupation of parts of the country before and during the war.
The government has promised a series of high profile events to mark the end of the war, including a military parade in Beijing in September and Xi will attend a similar parade in Moscow on Saturday, where Chinese troops are also taking part.
In a lengthy editorial in the official People’s Liberation Army Daily, the publication said that one of the main reasons why China suffered the humiliation of Japan’s invasion was that the country was weak and militarily backward at the time.
“With a weak country the military will decline, and when that happens you’ll get a thrashing,” it wrote.
“There is still a great lack of peace in the world today and there has been no substantive change to the ‘law of the jungle’ in international competition.”
