Article

2005-08-08 China-Japan-Koreas

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by God Save The World 2005-08-08 07:59|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 There were 1130 bombings around China last year, according to state press reports.

All by disgruntled husbands, pissed off business partners, angry loners, and road ragers I'm sure. Ain't no terrorists in China, right?

Posted by tu3031 2005-08-08 09:26|| 2005-08-08 09:26|| Front Page Top

#2 I would say that this is China's equivalent of Columbine. Nothing political about it, given that it was targeted against ordinary civilians. Why bombs? Because explosives are easier to come by than guns or bullets - they are used in both mines and road construction. And that's not counting the homemade bombs that can be rigged using ordinary chemicals (fertilizer, fuel oil, etc).

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2005-08-08 09:33|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-08-08 09:33|| Front Page Top

#3 tu3031: All by disgruntled husbands, pissed off business partners, angry loners, and road ragers I'm sure. Ain't no terrorists in China, right?

Hard to say. Guns are hard to come by in China.* Explosives are readily available, either in homemade form, or lifted from industrial facilities.

* Both guns and ammunition are rationed out, even to China's policemen. Not every cop has a gun. And the ones who do get very few bullets. This may, in part, have to do with coup insurance.

Every revolt in China's past started out with the local authorities initially declaring allegiance to the central government, and then later on, as the situation deteriorated for the central authority, going into business for themselves. In other words, as the central government collapsed, governors of individual provinces would declare themselves independent of the central power.** Not handing out ammo may be an attempt to curb the potential for the accelerated collapse of central authority and a devolution into armed fiefs if an armed power struggle happens in the capital.

** If the center could not hold, the winner among these contenders would become the founder of the next dynasty, after his competitors and their households were massacred. In many cases, individuals who started out in petty offices managed to seize hold of the reins of power, since armed conflict favors the able rather than those of privileged birth. Throughout history, Chinese rebels have tended to be relatively meritocratic - they have tended to favor ability over lineage in choosing (or switching over to) their leaders - an understandable pragmatism, since they are literally gambling, not only with their lives, but the lives of their families and friends.

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2005-08-08 09:47|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-08-08 09:47|| Front Page Top

#4 Hmmmm???? Sounds fishy to me. News from China is so filtered its hard to tell. I do know that they have their own problem with peace loving Mooselimbs. Southeastern region would be the area for our friends with head scarves.

Posted by intrinsicpilot 2005-08-08 10:23|| 2005-08-08 10:23|| Front Page Top

#5 IP: Hmmmm???? Sounds fishy to me. News from China is so filtered its hard to tell. I do know that they have their own problem with peace loving Mooselimbs. Southeastern region would be the area for our friends with head scarves.

Muslims tend to be concentrated in the northwest and southwest. If the government is disguising the fact that the attacker is Muslim, it may be for the protection of scattered Muslim communities more than anything else. I doubt they want to see heaps of Muslim corpses in the manner of the Indian massacres. The ferocity of Chinese mobs was demonstrated during the mini-civil war that was the Cultural Revolution. (Going further back, there were massacres of tens of thousands of Christians during the Boxer Rebellion and of Manchurians right after the Manchurian Qing dynasty was overthrown).

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2005-08-08 10:36|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-08-08 10:36|| Front Page Top

#6 ZF: If the government is disguising the fact that the attacker is Muslim

That should have read "If the attacker is in fact Muslim and government is disguising that fact". I have no knowledge of the attacker's religion. Suicidal attacks aren't unknown to the Chinese. During the Korean War, Chinese units routinely charged in the face of machine gun and artillery fire. Unlike the Japanese, however, the Chinese did not see death as an end in itself - they were perfectly content to be taken prisoner if they were overwhelmed.

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2005-08-08 10:42|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-08-08 10:42|| Front Page Top

#7 I wouldn't really call those "suicide" attacks, ZF, though it no doubt turned out that way for most. They didn't want to die, and there was a very small chance they would actually survive the assault. I would call the Chinese and Nork troops "brave," unlike the real suicide types. Our troops did some of the same thing at times, like climbing the cliffs at Normandy, or wading ashore at Tarawa.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-08-08 11:06|| home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-08-08 11:06|| Front Page Top

#8 Jackal: I wouldn't really call those "suicide" attacks, ZF, though it no doubt turned out that way for most. They didn't want to die, and there was a very small chance they would actually survive the assault. I would call the Chinese and Nork troops "brave," unlike the real suicide types. Our troops did some of the same thing at times, like climbing the cliffs at Normandy, or wading ashore at Tarawa.

Chinese troops advanced in the face of American air, artillery and tank superiority. It was a massacre, reflected in Chinese KIA that approached 1 million. American forces assaulting beaches typically had air and arty superiority.

Posted by Zhang Fei">Zhang Fei 2005-08-08 11:10|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-08-08 11:10|| Front Page Top

#9 Jackal

I think you have forgotten a lot about how comminist armies work. For instance it is not unusual they keep a line of NKVD-KGB people in the trenches who fire in the back of everyone who slackens (eg the assault on Konstadt), then there is the extensive use of punitive batallions: people drawn from Gulag or punished for having forgotten one of the 500 praises to Dear Leader and who are sent to detonate minefields or in non-white uniforms during winter in order to attract fire (extensive use by the Russians during WWII, allegedly after every attack the 20% of survivors were reverted to normal units), people of the NVA who were chained to their trenches and the ever popular method of letting the soldier know that his family will be shot if he flees.

You should never forget Stalin's sentence: "You need to be very brave in order to not/b> be a hero in the Red Army"

Posted by JFM">JFM 2005-08-08 11:32|| 2005-08-08 11:32|| Front Page Top

#10 oops. My bad. The Mooselimbs of Xinjiang are in fact in the Northwest. Suicide bombers have been known to travel tho.

Posted by intrinsicpilot 2005-08-08 11:35|| 2005-08-08 11:35|| Front Page Top

#11 Yup, my landlady's husband is a local one-stripe cop, and he says they just have one gun at the police station. [insert Barney Fife jokes here]

Posted by gromky">gromky 2005-08-08 11:44|| http://communistposters.com/]">[http://communistposters.com/] 2005-08-08 11:44|| Front Page Top

#12 He had terminal lung cancer, Xinhua reported. Such attacks are common in China, often carried out by angry residents who feel wronged by society or the communist party government.

Cancer kills Splody Voter and 31 riders on Chinese bus, second hand smoke.

Posted by Red Dog 2005-08-08 11:53|| 2005-08-08 11:53|| Front Page Top

#13 I'll agree that most of the Chinese/NorK attackers died very quickly. I'll also agree that the leadership deliberately used them in a way that increased the chance of their dying.

But, I'll still maintain they didn't want to die. Unlike the splodydopes or the 9/11 pilots who were deliberately killing themselves.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2005-08-08 15:31|| home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2005-08-08 15:31|| Front Page Top

#14 What JFM said, Socialist Dictatorships tend to have rather nasty light infantry behind their own forces.

Posted by Shipman 2005-08-08 15:32|| 2005-08-08 15:32|| Front Page Top

#15 Hopefully, China will adopt the eradication solution - re Islamofascists - that the West and Russia refuse to implement. Application of freedom on conscience to the beliefs of terrorists, degrades that noble term. Kill them all!

Posted by Vlad the Muslim Impaler 2005-08-08 21:04|| 2005-08-08 21:04|| Front Page Top

23:54 JosephMendiola
23:40 smn
23:33 JosephMendiola
23:28 JosephMendiola
23:25 Sherry
23:24 Jackal
23:17 bigjim-ky
23:11 bigjim-ky
23:11 Poison Reverse
22:59 Art
22:58 Jan
22:45 3dc
22:37 macofromoc
22:27 CrazyFool
22:26 Glenmore
22:25 CrazyFool
22:25 Frank G
22:24 Frank G
22:24 mmurray821
22:22 Sherry
22:18 mmurray821
22:11 CrazyFool
22:06 Poison Reverse
21:51 rkb