More than 75 years following the close of World War II, kamikaze-style attacks might be making their return to the Pacific.
At least, that’s what China’s propagandists want the world to think. A new eight-part propaganda series on China’s CCTV network, “Chasing Dreams,” sets out to demonstrate Beijing’s single-minded focus on annexing Taiwan — at any cost. (The dream, of course, is for China to be sovereign over Taiwan.) The series, which is on YouTube, features mostly footage of People’s Liberation Army exercises: fighter jets streaking through the sky and soldiers as they climb mountains, emerge from the sea onto beaches, and march in formation.
A few news outlets have done the work of translating some of the most arresting dialogue from the series. The quotes that stand out are incontestably those in which PLA members vow to ram themselves into enemy vessels and to clear minefields with their bodies.
Li Peng, a pilot from a squadron in the PLA’s Eastern Command — which covers Taiwan — said, according to the South China Morning Post: “My fighter would be my last missile, rushing towards the enemy if in a real battle I had used up all my ammunition.”
The Morning Post also translated remarks by a crew member of a PLA Navy minesweeper: “If war broke out and the conditions were too difficult to safely remove the naval mines in actual combat, we will use our own bodies to clear a safe pathway for our landing forces.”
Beijing certainly has an interest in using extreme rhetoric to fan nationalistic impulses — and to inspire fear in the Chinese Communist Party’s enemies. The television series aired to mark the PLA’s 96th anniversary. But this sort of propaganda should nonetheless be taken at face value: It’s the most logical progression from the extreme language that senior PLA officers, the Chinese ministry of defense, and at least one prominent diplomat have used over the past two years. It’s what the party is telling the world about its intentions.