Beijing is not very worried about the stability of its main strategic partner, Russia, but is closely monitoring and analyzing what is happening in our country. They are no strangers to the adventures of “informal” detachments and entire armies. Now they are thinking about the status of their own fighters operating outside the Middle Kingdom, guarding Chinese state and private property in troubled lands. The well-trained and armed squads of volunteers have long been in the shadows, but came into the public eye after the release of the movie “War Wolves” in 2015.
The plot of an action movie similar to American westerns is simple. A special forces soldier beats up a rural policeman who is trying to take away the house of a brother-soldier who died “in the line of duty” in the interests of developers. Having avoided the tribunal and lost his shoulder straps, he enrolls in a PMC operating somewhere in Africa. Along the way, a tough veteran eliminates a gang of Somali pirates who have seized the ship. At the place of the new service, he unfolds a war with PMCs from Europe, which intends to destroy the business of Chinese competitors. Along the way, the hero takes care of an orphaned African boy, seduces a European nurse, and performs other big and small good deeds. The adventures of the Chinese James Bond became a hit on the screen and gave record fees. The second series was urgently shot, which also turned out to be successful. But the main thing was different. “Fighting Wolves” from the next blockbuster has become a phenomenon of the spiritual life of the Celestial Empire. The lingering complex of resentment against Europeans and the great Chinese dream of getting even for “hundred-year humiliations” touched the most powerful strings of this soul. It was not only the millions of young people who believed in their coolness, who had watched “War Wolves” many times. Quite adult people began to behave self-confidently and sometimes aggressively – businessmen, journalists, diplomats. In the Western media, they often began to write about the phenomenon of “warriors-wolves”, and politicians began to speak even louder about the “Chinese threat”.
For the Chinese, there is nothing unusual and reprehensible in the activities of “good robbers.” As children, in books and cartoons, they enthusiastically follow the battles of the rebels from the classic novel “River Backwaters”, which describes the struggle of an entire brigand republic against imperial troops at the beginning of the 12th century during the Song Dynasty. Mao Zedong adored this novel and almost knew it by heart, who led the red rebels 8 centuries later and created his base in the caves of Yan’an on the outskirts of the Middle Kingdom. His Red Army was similar to a large PMC, which either helped the legitimate government of Chiang Kai-shek fight the Japanese troops, or attacked the allies. After defeating the Chiang Kai-shekists in 1949, Mao Zedong continued to act with the methods of PMCs. Already in 1950, hundreds of thousands of “Chinese people’s volunteers” were sent to the fronts of the civil war in Korea. The uncertain legal status did not stop the poorly armed Chinese from terrifying the Americans and their allies. The forced strategy of “human waves” forced the Americans to agree to a truce, although it cost the volunteers almost 200,000 “irreplaceable losses.” Among them was even the son of Chairman Mao, a former Soviet officer and participant in the Great Patriotic War, Mao Anying.
There are more and more “fighting wolves” in China. They are trying to send them to distant lands to protect the property of the Celestial Empire as the apple of their eye. Taking into account the Russian experience, they will be paid even more attention to and even more often repeated the precept of Mao Zedong: “A rifle gives birth to power.”
We See What Others Cannot
