Communist China marks its 60th year with big parade
Fri Oct 2 01:30:05 EST 2009
Thu Oct 1 15:30:05 UTC 2009
BEIJING, Oct 1 Agencies - Tanks and other heavy weaponry rumbled across Beijing behind goose-stepping troops as China celebrated 60 years of communist rule on Thursday with its biggest-ever military review - a symbol of its rapidly expanding global might.
The elaborate ceremony for the founding of the People's Republic unfolded on national television but behind tight security that excluded ordinary people from getting near the parade route through Tiananmen Square.
Precisely choreographed, the two-and-half-hour event hewed closely to tradition. President Hu Jintao, in a Mao jacket instead of a business suit, rode in an open top Red Flag limousine to review the thousands of troops.
A parade of kitschy floats, flanked by more than 100,000 people, lauded the communist revolution and last year's Beijing Olympics.
Even the weather cooperated, with aggressive cloud-seeding by the government having brought overnight showers to disperse smog and bring in blue skies.
The biggest difference was the weaponry, more than had been shown before and most of which was domestically produced: dozens of fighter jets and hundreds of tanks, artillery and trucks carrying long-range, nuclear-capable missiles.
"On this joyful and solemn occasion, all the peoples across the nation feel extremely proud for the progress and development of the motherland and have full confidence in the bright prospects for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," Hu said in a speech to the invitation-only crowd from Tiananmen gate, with the rest of the collective leadership looking on.
Behind the celebrations is the tremendous change of fortunes China has experienced. China has gone from poor and internationally weak when the communists took over on Oct. 1, 1949, to the world's third-largest economy and new power whose input the US superpower seeks to solve the global economic crisis and Iran's nuclear challenge.
Unmentioned during the event and crescendo of state media hype in recent weeks were the ruinous campaigns of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong that left tens of millions dead - as well as the country's current challenges: a widening gap between rich and poor, rampant corruption, severe pollution and ethnic uprisings in the western areas of Tibet and Xinjiang.
A gala and fireworks were planned late Thursday for Tiananmen Square.
Police maintained a visible presence, clearly worried that crowds might get out of hand, either from overexuberance or to protest the grievances that constantly simmer in Chinese society.
The large-screen television outside the Beijing Railway Station that normally streams programs throughout the day was switched off.
Still, the thousand or so people cheered "long live China" when they heard Hu's voice blaring from loudspeakers two blocks away as he reviewed the troops.
Police shouted "calm down" and "don't yell." They led away one well-dressed woman waving a small flag after she crossed the police line.
Some Chinese grumbled that the security dampened what could have been a more public celebration and showed the government's distrust of people.
In Hong Kong, which has Western-style civil liberties as part of its special semiautonomous status, hundreds of people protested on Thursday, denouncing China's human rights record during 60 years of communist rule.
About 200 people marched through the downtown financial district, chanting, "We want human rights. We don't want a sanitised National Day."
And in Nepal, dozens of Tibetan exiles were arrested as they tried to hold demonstrations on the anniversary, police and witnesses said.
Baton-wielding riot police detained 40 Tibetan protesters outside a Chinese embassy building in Nepal's capital Kathmandu.
The protesters waved Tibetan flags and shouted slogans including "No human rights in Tibet" and "We want a free Tibet" before they were dragged away and put into police vans.
Police said they had also arrested 38 Tibetan exiles on Thursday morning in Kathmandu after receiving reports that they intended to gather for anti-China protests.
