Snappy Birthday, Comrades

By Frederick Painton. Reported David Aikman/ Peking

In a colossal bash, Deng honors the armed forces and boosts military morale

The celebration was worthy of the world's most populous nation. More than half a million people, in high good humor, paraded and danced through Peking's vast Tiananmen Square last week to mark the 35th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. More than anything, however, the day belonged to Deng Xiaoping, 80, China's modernization-minded leader, who had chosen the occasion for the first public review in 25 years of the country's military might.

Standing erect in an open-roofed Hongqi (Red Flag) limousine, Deng slowly rode along rows of troops, barking out in his heavy Sichuan accent the ritual greeting of the People's Liberation Army, "Hello, comrades!" followed by "You are working hard!" Back came the soldiers' enthusiastic responses, "Hello, Commander!" and "Serve the people!"

The men and women of China's 4.2 million-strong People's Liberation Army,-- the biggest but by no means the most threatening military force in the world, had reason to feel gratified. Long years of disrepute and public neglect appeared to be ending at last. Over the past two decades, the P.L.A.'s leadership has repeatedly been purged as punishment for meddling in Peking's power struggles.

Resented by many civilians for its special privileges and occasional shows of arrogance, the P.L.A. saw its reputation as a fighting force badly damaged by its poor performance during China's three-week invasion of Viet Nam in 1979. Cuts in budget and manpower levels depressed morale even further. In Deng's drive for "four modernizations" of his country, first announced in 1971, the military ranked only fourth--after agriculture, industry, and science and technology. In terms of equipment, training and logistic support, according to Western analysts, China still lags at least a generation behind its powerful neighbor, the Soviet Union. Thus Deng's decision to bestow public recognition on the armed forces, as an estimated 400 million Chinese watched the televised proceedings, was an impressive, morale-boosting gesture.

With fine political acumen, Deng, the senior member of China's Politburo and chairman of the Central Military Commission, identified himself wholly with the P.L.A. during the solemn day of rehabilitation. After reviewing the assembled troops, he mounted a rostrum to deliver an eight-minute speech that made it clear that China is proud of itself these days. Said he: "The whole country has taken on a new look. .. Today our people are full of joy and pride." Noting the initialing only a week earlier of an agreement with Britain under which the Crown Colony of Hong Kong will be returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Deng spoke of "peaceful reunification with Taiwan" as "an irresistible trend." He also addressed himself directly to the military. "In the seriously deteriorating international situation," he warned, "we must strengthen our national defense. All officers and men of the Chinese People's Liberation Army must be alert at all times, constantly improve their military and political qualities, and strive to gain knowledge and capacity for modern warfare."

As he concluded his speech, a 1,200-member P.L.A. band struck up the first of several marches. The parade's leading unit, a 153-man, three-service honor guard, moved out at a brisk 116 paces a minute, in the goose step that is traditional for military displays in Communist countries. Artillery pieces boomed out a 28-gun salute, a symbolic reminder of the 28 years it took Mao Tse-tung and his Communist armies to wrest the mainland from the control of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists.

Less than ten minutes of the two-hour parade was taken up by the armed forces--6,000 soldiers followed by tanks, artillery and missiles. The rest consisted of a series of giant tableaux of moving humanity, depicting China's achievements under Deng, interspersed with battalions of dancers and students, all waving pompoms that transformed Tiananmen Square into shifting patterns of bright color. One huge float, representing the Yangtze River hydraulic project, had water gushing over a model dam; in another, a 14-ft. robot bunked, waved a bouquet of flowers and blurted out, "Long live the motherland!"

China's Olympic medalists rode on their own float. A handful of students flashed a personal greeting for their leader as the youngsters passed the reviewing stand displaying a homemade banner that read XIAOPING NINHAO (HELLO, XIAOPING). With nightfall came a stupendous display of fireworks and laser lights. For more than an hour, 278 artillery tubes fired 40,000 pyrotechnic rockets that rose up to 1,000 ft. over the capital. Some 200,000 celebrators participated in folk dancing. Peking residents were dazzled: there was no precedent for the sheer grandeur of the extravaganza.

It was the military review, however, that fascinated Peking's diplomatic community and foreign guests, among them Kampuchean Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who lives in Peking part of the time, and former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Not only was China showing off weaponry that outsiders had not been permitted to see before, but as Peking Military Region Commander Qin Jiwei made clear, it was the first such demonstration in 35 years. Said a Western military attache: "It was an impressive display of equipment that shows a pretty good capability in terms of manufacturing. There wasn't a piece there that was not made in China." If the review provided no stunning surprises, the closeup look at relatively advanced conventional weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles gave foreigners an opportunity to gauge China's priorities and capacities in the production of modern military hardware.

With almost theatrical timing, the forces in the display paraded past the reviewing stand with progressively more sophisticated arms. The climax came with China's pride, the big missiles. The contingent was led by two short, stubby rockets that Western observers recognized as CSS-NX-4s, still experimental but deployed for trials aboard one of China's two Afa-class ballistic-missile submarines. With a limited range probably similar to that of early U.S. sub-launched Polaris missiles (1,200 to 1,500 miles), the CSS-NX-4 nonetheless is a potent weapon: its existence ensures that part of China's nuclear deterrent can survive an enemy's first strike on its land-based missiles. In order of size there followed three medium-range land-launched CSS-2s, three intermediate-range CSS-3s and, largest by far, a CSS-4, a three-stage intercontinental mammoth capable of hitting targets as far as 8,000 miles away, a range that includes the Soviet Union, the U.S. and all of Asia. So big was the CSS-4 that it was trundled by, separated into its stages, on two transporters.

About halfway through the review, the roar of jets signaled an air force flypast, which was virtually invisible to ground observers because of Peking's chronic smog. The New China News Agency reported that 96 aircraft had taken part. They included H-6 bombers, Chinese versions of the Soviet TU-16 Badger; A6s, radically redesigned ground-support planes similar to the MiG-19; and F-7s, a Chinese adaptation of the MiG-21. The foreign observers had not missed much. Although China has the second-largest number of combat aircraft in the world (after the Soviet Union), most are either obsolete or obsolescent. The H-6, for example, China's only bomber of note, is based on a 25-year-old design, has a limited range (less than 3,000 miles) and is not capable of penetrating a sophisticated air-defense network. So far, China has been unable to develop either an effective modern fighter-bomber with nuclear-delivery capability or a technically sophisticated fighter.

The navy, too, hardly presents a threat to any of Peking's neighbors. Though it has an impressive force of 100 diesel-powered submarines and at least two Han-class nuclear-powered attack subs, China does not have a navy capable of projecting power worldwide. The conventional subs cannot venture far beyond coastal waters and are highly vulnerable to sonar detection. Nonetheless, China's navy has been receiving the lion's share of modernization funds. Its current manpower of 360,000 is more than double its 1970 strength, and the number of Chinese combat vessels has tripled to more than 300 since 1980. Behind the sped-up naval expansion program lie fears of the growing Soviet presence in Far Eastern waters, based in part on access and use privileges the Soviets have been granted at Viet Nam's Cam Ranh Bay. China also has offshore oilfields that might need protection in the future.

There was little in the display to indi cate that for the moment Peking aspires to much more than being a regional military power and protecting its huge land mass against threats, mainly, no doubt, from the Soviet Union. Even that danger seems distant at present. Said a Washington analyst last week: "The Chinese don't think they're going to be invaded. They're quite laid back. The sense of urgency about the Soviet military receded rapidly in the late 1970s. They view it as a long-term threat." In the meantime, according to the analyst, the Soviet Union would be hard-pressed to wipe out China's elusive nuclear deterrent in one strike. Says he: "The Chinese hide many of their missiles.

Some of them are in caves. They invented the missile shuttle game. They move them around all the time."

In many ways, the Oct. 1 parade was most significant for its political impact: after encountering initial opposition, Deng appears to be slowly succeeding in reshaping and streamlining the P.L.A. into a less politicized, more professional mili tary force. For an army that was the dominant institution in the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party, that attempt is nothing short of revolutionary. Deng has already accomplished much against the resistance of the military's aged and entrenched bureaucrats. Younger and better-trained officers are steadily pushing out the old guard. A new, 48-article disciplinary code announced this year is expected to curb the habits of senior officers who frequent the country's best resorts and restaurants. A working consensus has emerged in Peking on a fundamental defense doctrine, which is called the People's War Under Modern Conditions. Obviously it has be come apparent to China's military leaders that they can no longer rely on Mao's guer rilla doctrine of "luring the enemy deep." If ever practiced against a Soviet invasion, that would invite an armored Soviet blitz across the Manchurian plain toward the heart of China, an attack that would be difficult to contain. For all the relative backwardness of China's military machine, its sheer numbers cannot be overlooked -- nor can the nation's awakening ambitions. China intends to add to its military muscle, and as that the world will have to take notice.

-- By Frederick Painton.

Reported David Aikman/ Peking

The term refers to all of China's armed forces, not just the army.