China is “prepared for war” and “will not yield an inch of territory to foreigners,” according to a recruitment video its People’s Liberation Army Navy released last week.
The four-minute, 16-second video includes all the islands being claimed and reclaimed by China plus a show of its firepower during war games in disputed seas, according to an article on The National Interest magazine’s website. The original article came out on the Lowry Interpreter website.
The video opens with Chinese graduating from university and engaging in sports. It segues to martial music and footage of the Senkaku Islands that are also claimed by Japan and Taiwan and reefs in the West Philippine Sea.
The video shows images of bombs exploding and rockets being fired.
The accompanying text in a second part of the video, titled “Call of Duty,” said “71 percent of the globe we depend on is blue water... wherever there is blue water, we will be there to secure navigation... China’s oceanic and overseas interests are expanding rapidly... our land is vast but we will not yield an inch of our territory to foreigners.”
According to the text, China claims three million square kilometers of ocean under its jurisdiction – an area that includes as many as 6,700 islands.
“The struggle over our sea rights is not over,” the text states. “We will not yield even the tiniest speck of our resources.”
According to a recent report by the US Office of Naval Intelligence, China’s claim on “three million square kilometers of blue territory” would incorporate “nearly 90 percent of the area within the major bodies of water within the First Island Chain, including the Bo Hai, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea.”
In the third part of the video, titled “The Honor Gene,” the text states that “thousands of sea battles forged us...in very bloody combat...hot blood and the smell of gunpowder, we kept working hard, we kept growing....the passionate efforts of youth...forging in trials made possible the breakthrough... we maintain combat readiness...we are prepared for war.”
The video follows another video, aired by China Central Television last month, showing a drill simulating an assault on Taiwan’s presidential office.
According to The National Interest, the intention of the videos may be “to scare potential opponents, perhaps to win a war without having to fight.”