Comments by "Winston Smith" (@kryts27) on "What made Xi Jinping break a PLA tradition - COVID or a Chinese military strategy?" video.

  1. Yes very wise in hindsight. The PLA appears strong when it is still actually quite weak. On sea and air, definitely. On land, possibly. A PLA detachment supposed to be guarding civilians in South Sudan, turned tail and fled (while fully armed), when a smaller force of marauders arrived and raped the women. Not even professional as soldiers. Spineless is the word that comes to mind here.
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  2. The CCP's and PLA's sabre rattling, particularly over the past 3 years is why the CCP's enemies (yes, the CCP considers the US and it's allies as external enemies) are drawing ranks. Xi Jinping again has massively miscalculated.
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  3. Older and usually more senior people in their 40s 50s and 60s in the PLA and PLAPN are more severely affected by the Covid outbreak, leading to some deaths. It's like Stalin purging the Soviet Red Army in the 1930s (by disposing of many of the professional senior leaders), that possibly lead to retreat and near collapse of the Red Army in 1941 and 1942 when the Wehrmacht invaded. Except now the job is being done by a germ, not by a paranoid dictator (yet).
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  4. Well if you try sabre rattling, your enemies are going to wake up and increase their military force potential and strengthen their alliances. What a surprise (not). The discarding of the recent Wolf Warrior diplomacy of the CCP is indicative of the failure of that foreign policy by increasing the war preparations and war making potential of your adversities. I could say that a rational ten year kid could have deduced the Wolf Warror response internationally. Shows you the brittle nature of the "face" of the CCP internationally and of the PLA internally.
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  5. In hundreds of years of pandemics like polio or smallpox viruses before it? I am not so fatalistic.
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