Outspoken PLA Air Force colonel and noted media whore Dai Xu has drawn the ire and incredulity of Chinese netizens for saying that “it wouldn’t matter” if China’s east coast cities were destroyed by US bombing because they could simply re-build in Northwestern China.
“We started as a poor country, we could easily return to being poor,” Dai said.
In a lecture to a room of starched uniforms, Dai casually asserts that a war between the world’s two largest military powers would be “no biggie” (the Chinese phrase he used was 无所谓).
According to Dai’s logic, even if the US wipes out the coastal cities that are the driving force of China’s economy, the US would be the eventual loser because its military bases and aircraft carriers stationed in the Asia Pacific region would be "blown to smithereens."
Dai’s remarks came when he offered a very far-fetched hypothetical scenario in which the US sends troops to defend Japan’s claim to the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, thereby causing Putin to re-establish the Soviet Union.
We kid you not. Although, the fact that Dai lists his job on Weibo as “patriot” makes us wonder if he’s not the Stephen Colbert of China.
The hawkish colonel is probably most famous for penning a Global Times editorial in which he called Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan “the three running dogs of the United States in Asia" and argued, "We only need to kill one, and it will immediately bring the others to heel."
Dai delivered the remarks at a forum last year, but yesterday Chinese news website Dujiawang dug up a video of the speech and summarized the highlights.
Responses on Weibo were predictably nonplussed:
@羊群李顺岭: “This guy is crazy. He wouldn’t let his own family die, but the deaths of hundreds of millions of ordinary people is nothing to him.”
@五岳吟-羊群: “This Dai Xu is getting increasingly irritating, always yelling about starting a war with the US. If it really happens, we’ll see who suffers. Don’t treat your fellow countrymen like their lives and property are worth nothing.”
@青光楚辞: “All the armies and air forces in the world combined together aren’t as strong as America’s, it’s not just weapons and technology, it’s also experience and training, do you know the average number of flying hours for US fighter pilots? You’re going to blow them to smithereens? That’s exactly what Japan said back in the day!”
(h/t Eddie Du)
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