Recurring Item: "China Threatens"

Shannon Tiezzi reports at The Diplomat Xi Warns That China Will ‘Use War to Prevent War’: China's 

Chairman "President" Xi rattles the Korean War as a victory for China and suggests it as a lesson for the U.S.

Xi’s speech echoed – but greatly expanded on – the themes of his remarks on October 19. First, he emphasized the Korean War as a David-vs-Goliath struggle, with China standing up for justice against a far more powerful enemy. In his words, the war started when the U.S., acting from its “Cold War mentality,” “interfered” in the resolution of the Korean civil war (translation: North Korea invaded the South, and the United States intervened).

In this “extremely asymmetric” war, Xi said, China won with “less steel, more spirit” against an enemy equipped with “more steel, less spirit”: “The forces of China and North Korea defeated their armed-to-teeth rival and shattered the myth of invincibility of the U.S. army.”

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But Xi also tries hard to paint this as a victory not only for China, but the world. According to his speech, the end of the Korean War was a triumph for “peace and justice” and a blow to “imperialism.” He claimed that the war “greatly encouraged” the trend toward Asian countries’ independence and liberation from colonial forces.

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But Xi also warns that “the road ahead will not be smooth,” and advises China that it will need the martial spirit of the war to overcome today’s challenges. “It is necessary to speak to invaders in the language they know: that is, use war to prevent war… and use a [military] victory to win peace and respect,” Xi said.

In the last 70 years, one side's ally on the Korean peninsula has prospered and its people are free from repression and it's not the one on whose behalf China intervened.

Just sayin'

NASA image from 2014

I wouldn't be too proud of a war "victory" that leaves my ally looking like that at night, Mr. Xi.