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Neimenggu and Xi Jinping’s dream of strong army

Posted August. 01, 2017 09:23,   

Updated August. 01, 2017 11:23

한국어

Neimenggu, which is sitting on the borders of Mongolia and Russia, was first recognized as an autonomous district in China in 1947. For many Koreans, the place sounds familiar as the source of yellow dusts. In the spring, the skies of the entire Korean Peninsula are covered with the fine dusts generated from the Gobi Desert.

 

Neimenggu is not just a desert area. It is at the forefront of China’s ambition to become space and military powerhouses. Neimenggu is home to the Jiuquan Space Center, which sends manned spaceships to space as well as the Zhurihe Base, the single largest military training center in Asia. Indeed, it was the Zhurihe Base where the military parade was held to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Liberation Army of China on July 30. Twenty years ago, the base was vastly revamped for tactical trainings to prepare for future wars.  

The military parade showcased a sweeping array of China’s cutting-edge military assets including 12,000-strong military forces, 120 military aircraft, as well as the new types of inter-continental missiles capable of striking the mainland United States. Chinese President Xi Jinping showed up in a camo uniform, inspecting the troops from the back of a jeep, and the People’s Army called him “jooseok” as they saluted, an extremely honorific term for the Chinese. The event both flexed China’s military muscle and signaled the country’s cemented power structure centered around Xi. China has typically held the military parades at the Tiananmen Square on October 1, the national day of the People’s Republic of China. One might wonder why the country has chosen the foundation day of its military this time, and why so far as Zhurihe. The answers can be inferred from an article of the New China News Agency, which mentioned Genghis Khan and the Kangxi Emperor.   

 

In the Mongolian, Zhurihe means a heart. For China, Zhurihe is like the heart, where Kangxi, the emperor who held power for the longest period in the Chinese history, successfully quelled insurgency 300 years ago, and the starting line of Genghis Khan’s ambitious quest to conquer the world, which dates 800 years back. The article also mentions that the Zhurihe Base is close to a base from which Genghis Khan went off to war to conquer Eurasia. Having lost his father at 13 and gone through numerous hardships, Genghis Khan led nomads with remarkable tenacity and ended up building a vast empire going beyond the legacy of King Alexander in size. President Xi has chosen the foundation day of the country’s army to hold a military parade for the first time in China’s history; his ambition certainly looms.