Fun with China: Recruiting for China's People's Liberation Army Navy

With a big hat tip to J. Michael Cole at The National Interest, "Watch: China's Shocking New Military Recruitment Video":

It doesn't take long, however, for the video to shift to bombastic music and visuals of a very different nature. The appeal to nationalism—and to China's territorial claims—is hard to miss, what with footage of the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islets in the East China Sea, which are also claimed by Japan and Taiwan, as well as various features in the South China Sea, a source of rising tension in recent years.

There are a few glimpses of the PLAN's humanitarian role, but this is contrasted with, and overtaken by, unmistakable militarism: endless footage of bombs falling, rockets being fired, things being blown up. There is definitely an element of signaling, and it's not meant to be reassuring. If we put this together with a campaign that included a video, aired on CCTV early last month, of exercises ostensibly simulating an assault on Taiwan's Presidential Office, the intention is to scare potential opponents, perhaps to win a war without having to fight.

Yep, fun with a burgeoning power. A hungry one, at that. Hungry for respect. Hungry for payback for several hundred years of being a weak sister.

Funny, that music reminds of something . . . perhaps a U.S. Navy commercial?

Update: Ah, found it: