Everything’s Fine
By Mitch Berg
In the 1960s and ’70s, the Peoples Republic of China had, very nominally, the world’s largest “army”, listed at the time in the Guinness Book of World Records as being 200 million strong.
Of course, those were CCP numbers, ginned up by adding up the nominal numbers of the “Peoples Militia” – basically most of the nation’s able-bodied people impressed (dare we say, “Shanghaied”) into a putative “fighting force” armed with antiques, spears and dogma.
The reason, of course, was to project a mien of power, resolve and invincibility, at a time when China was three decades removed from subjugation, warlordism and indolence.
Today, China is none of those things (other than perhaps run by the modern warlords, the CCP’s regional apparatuses).
And yet…:
Chinese companies are doing something rarely seen since the 1970s: setting up their own volunteer armies. At least 16 major Chinese firms, including a privately-owned dairy giant, have established fighting forces over the past year, according to a CNN analysis of state media reports.
These units, known as the People’s Armed Forces Departments, are composed of civilians who retain their regular jobs. They act as a reserve and auxiliary force for China’s military, the world’s largest, and are available for missions ranging from responding to natural disasters and helping maintain “social order” to providing support during wartime.
The reason?
Arguably, because all is not well in China. The pandemic exposed some of the internal fault lines that are perking up the ears of some China watchers; social unrest that’d been repressed or satiated for decades came boiling up to the surface (although you’d have to talk with those China watchers to know it, since the US media will never cover it until it’s too late).
“The return of corporate militias reflects Xi’s rising focus on the need to better integrate economic development with national security as the country faces a more difficult future of slower growth and rising geopolitical competition,” said Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.
“Corporate militias under military leadership could help the Communist Party more effectively quell incidents of social unrest such as consumer protests and employee strikes,” he said.
This being CNN, the audience needed to be reassured that this wasn’t anything associated with the big, bad American right:
The forces, which do not currently operate outside China, have more in common with America’s National Guard than its militia movement, which refers to private paramilitary organizations that usually have a right-wing political focus.
Red China may or may not end up being a viable enterprise for purposes of governing itself, much less conquering the world. But given CNN’s performance, that ship may have left the docks.
February 21st, 2024 at 12:10 pm
I wonder what all of those military age Chinese men flooding across our borders (over 200,000 as of last Friday) doing here? Several large groups of these men are dressed the same way, carrying the same back packs. Could it be that some American company recruited them?
February 21st, 2024 at 12:49 pm
The pandemic had a deleterious effect, more specifically China’s Zero-COVID policies, but there’s more going on than that. The widespread Ponzi scheme that is the Chinese real estate market collapsing real time is a much more important problem especially with regards to its effect on the Chinese middle class in the midst of recession (25% youth unemployment, the $6 trillion loss in Chinese and Hong Kong stocks since 2021, the drop in foreign investment to a 30 year low, and the fact that workers, both public and private, are not getting paid). And let’s not forget that in China, even in the best of times, 40% of the country made no more than $140/month; but that number could be even higher.
Corporate militias? Sounds like a smart move for the rising anger.
February 21st, 2024 at 12:56 pm
Somehow upon hearing about corporate militias, I think “This is something that Tennessee Ernie Ford never imagined in his worst nightmares.” It almost sounds as if China is headed for a civil war, or set of them, that is going to make the Cultural Revolution (65 million or so dead) look bloodless in comparison.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:50 pm
Imagine you run a corporation. Imagine you see the economy tanking.
Imagine you feel an obligation to your shareholders and employees to keep the business running as well as possible, as long as possible. Imagine you don’t trust the government to maintain public order. Finally, imagine you are afraid to speak out lest you and your company be targeted for mayhem or prosecution.
When the collapse comes, a company militia might be a handy thing to have around. They could defend your business properties from “mostly peaceful protest” fires. They could protect employees’ families, temporarily sheltering in the company offices for short term safety from rampaging mobs.
Nobody would ever need that in America, of course.
February 21st, 2024 at 1:57 pm
Here’s a description from a wall inside Prague’s Museum of Communism describing labor militias:
“Militia were formed in the course of the revolution of February 1948 from labor troops armed by the Communist Party a month before. In the beginning, their role was to develop fear in political opposition and the middle class, but later they were also used for suppression of purely labor rebellions. The largest took place in 1953 when the “currency reform” robbed most of the population of their savings. Militia were presented by the Communist propaganda as “the fist of the labor class”. Armed labor, marching along the streets in their ceremonial parades or accompanying police suppression of protest demonstrations truly caused fear, but by the expression in their faces rather than with their arms, as they usually received no ammunition for them.”
February 22nd, 2024 at 10:04 am
That China is doing this is telling you a few things:
1) The CCP believes it has thorough control of the company hierarchy. It wouldn’t entertain this else.
2) The CCP believes that the peasants are getting restless. As jdm noted, things aren’t good inside China, and the middle class is getting wiped out with the real estate collapse, which is driving a stock market collapse of epic proportions. Real estate used to be the only real way of saving/investing for the middle class, but ponzi schemes can’t go on forever.
3) The CCP is responding by tightening its grip on companies, but that’s driving out foreign investment as foreigners grow ever more worried about the CCP imposing controls on investment and repatriation.
Gee, does this sound like what we’re going through now, but in a lesser format? The elites are increasing control over companies via regulation, and wiping out those with whom they aren’t happy (Remington, fracking, Trump, etc).
The main method of the middle class here to achieve wealth, real estate, has been driven out of their reach (“You will own nothing and be happy!”).
And so now the hoi polloi here have begun to rebel, so the elites are enlisting corporations to aid them by forcing them to toe the line of the Establishment and censor everyone via restricting speech, or even by making folks fear unemployment for speaking the truth.
It ain’t just China, dudes.
February 22nd, 2024 at 10:45 am
It ain’t just China, dudes
Well put, nerdbert.
February 22nd, 2024 at 4:07 pm
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