Sinomania!

The Chinese Communist Party threw a big parade in Beijing to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. At this point in America's history, it was 1836 and President Jackson failed to contain a financial panic after he collapsed the nation's central bank. The USA entered a severe depression the following year. In 2014 Japan may mark the 60th year since the nation regained sovereignty back from the USA. Beijing's parade was intended for a domestic audience and no doubt succeeded immensely in that sense. But for outside viewers the parade was catastrophic PR. The screenshot shown at left from Yahoo! news sums it up. China Marks 60 Years of Communist Rule by driving tanks through the streets of its capital -- not to mention the nuclear missiles!

For Chinese turning 60 is an important milestone. In the past not many lived to see their 60th birthday. On that occasion a person has cycled through all the elements (earth, wind, fire, wood, and metal) and returned to the point in the Chinese astrological system where they were born. It is often marked with big parties and special gifts. In Lahaina, Maui, at the Wing Ho Society museum there is an elaborate giant screen made in the 19th Century for a prominent Chinese citizen's 60th birthday. A whole section of the Forbidden City with a huge Chinese opera stage was erected for the dowager empress's (Pinyin: Cixi) 60th birthday in 1895 the same year China lost Taiwan to Japan.

In 1969 the People's Republic of China celebrated its 20th anniversary. At that time the People's Daily was the most widely distributed newspaper in China and the front page of its 1 October addition was devoted entirely to a photo of Chairman Mao. Twenty years later on the 40th anniversary Jiang Zemin looked past the Tiananmen Square riots and proclaimed that China would achieve economic modernization by the middle of the 21st Century. With four decades yet to go until 2050 China appears to be right on track.

Labels: communist china