海角大神

There鈥檚 a lot to learn from an article that just appeared on the website of the Chinese People鈥檚 Liberation Army; for example, Chinese soldiers鈥� underpants were equipped with elasticated waistbands only in the 21^st听肠别苍迟耻谤测.

Until recently, the article recalls, an infantryman would 鈥渉ave to worry about the rope of his big underpants, which would loosen suddenly but could never be untied when he wanted to answer the call of nature.鈥�

Behind this tantalizing tidbit lies an illuminating point: Chinese military planners pay more attention to aircraft carriers and satellite-killer rockets than they do to their foot soldiers.聽Chinese infantrymen have a tradition of stripped-down fighting that dates back to the days when the Communist Party was fighting a guerrilla war before the revolution. Money is no longer so scarce, but Beijing is still not spending much on its lowly grunts.

The battlefield equipment that the average Chinese fighter wears would cost the equivalent of 鈥渢wo entry level iPhone6's,鈥� says the article. His American counterpart would be carrying gear worth 10 times that, the equivalent of 鈥渁 mid-level car,鈥� according to the reporter鈥檚 estimate.

An example: US soldiers wear Kevlar helmets equipped with communications technology. Most Chinese soldiers, the article says, are still wearing steel helmets; only a minority have Kevlar models and none of them have earphones or microphones.

鈥淐ommunications basically relies on yelling,鈥� the article quotes a soldier on the point of retiring after 16 years鈥� service, Wang Fujian, as saying.

Still, they can consider themselves lucky to have helmets at all. During the last war that Chinese troops fought 鈥� a border conflict with Vietnam in 1979 鈥� helmets were not even standard issue, scorned as 鈥渆quipment of the weak,鈥� the article recalls.

That kind of thinking has not entirely died out in the Chinese military. Although China is the largest exporter in the world of body armor, very few of its soldiers are provided with bulletproof jackets. 鈥淪ome leaders think that it is too indulgent to wrap soldiers with too much equipment,鈥� the article quotes a PLA logistics instructor, Cui Xianwei, as saying.

That attitude contrasts sharply with the approach taken by the US Army, which provides dismounted soldiers with Kevlar boxers to protect them against improvised explosive devices.

An elasticated waistband 鈥撀燼nd a fetching camouflage pattern according to an illustration on the website 鈥撀爄s as high tech as Chinese military underwear gets.

China has the second largest military budget in the world, (far) behind the United States. 鈥淏ut in fact, second place did not bring Chinese soldiers more sense of security,鈥� the PLA website article says.

It points out that according to an article published by the state-run news agency Xinhua earlier this year, spending on soldiers鈥� individual equipment has remained flat for the past five years, even as the overall military budget has doubled.

That is counterproductive, suggests one unnamed PLA political officer quoted in the article. 鈥淲e educate soldiers that we shall fear neither hardship nor death,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut if we provide him with advanced protective equipment he will feel very assured, and as a result he will have more confidence to win the war.鈥澛�