I went with an extra special long title to celebrate the 60th anniversary of The People’s Republic Of China. This morning (or yesterday, depending on your concept of time zones) China celebrated while urging its 1.3 billion people to unite behind the ruling Communist Party.

In the first major Chinese military parade in 10 years, some 200,000 spectators got a chance to see mobile launchers for nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, thousands of armed soldiers, and Olympic gold medal diver Guo Jingjing (juxtaposition humor).

I first read about the story on Earth Times:

“Many of the 60 floats in the civilian parade were designed to highlight China’s achievements in such fields as science, industry, trade, agriculture, education and its use of the controversial “one- child” family-planning policy to limit its population to 1.3 billion people.

The scores of people riding on the floats included national heroes such as Olympic hurdler Liu Xiang, Olympic diver Guo Jingjing, astronauts Yang Liwei and Zhai Zhigang, and the “father of hybrid rice” Yuan Longping.” (source)

Really China?!? Nuclear-armed ballistic missile parade? That’s so 1990′s.

Image Source: The Hindu