PLA Navy news, pics and videos

Tsavo Lion said:

The PLA started as a guerilla army w/o any distinctive branches as it is today.
IMO, it's high time to rename it People's Republic of China Armed Forces with branches as PRCArmy, PRCAF, PRCN, PRC Strategic Support Service, PRCArmed Militia, & PRCCoast Guard.

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if you know any Chinese, PLA makes perfect sense and it's a really good name to letting people feel the bonding, and its ideology...

the "armed force" on the other hand in Chinese is much more like a translated word and make people feel distance

so as long as its Chinese name is good, why they care about in direct translation in English?

Tsavo Lion said:

Yes, it'll stay as is until a new form of gov. is established there.
Japan has an Emperor but it's not an empire anymore; China isn't a true republic as she has a Chairman, a de-facto Emperor, & is still called Middle Kingdom in Chinese; the USA is considered as a "constitutional republic" but in fact an empire modeled on the bygone Roman & British Empires; Russia is called "Federation" but is also a hybrid empire that replaced the Byzantium & the Golden Horde in Eurasia.
The PRC better start following Confucius' (whom she rehabilitated) dictum about using proper names for everything.

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Not middle Kingdom. Just middle country. Guo in Chinese means country, does not distinguish between type of government

Please come back to the topic this is the PLAN breaking news, pics, & videos thread

stannislas said:

if you know any Chinese, PLA makes perfect sense and it's a really good name to letting people feel the bonding, and its ideology...

the "armed force" on the other hand in Chinese is much more like a translated word and make people feel distance

so as long as its Chinese name is good, why they care about in direct translation in English?

Click to expand...

In a lot of cultures and languages, "Army" means the military. In such cultures "ground forces" is used for the terrestrial warfare branch. It appears that Chinese is one of those languages in which the military usually just called the army. Despite this, I still don't understand why they translated "军" as army. I think it could have translated as armed forces or military to English. May the Chinese here explain?

BoraTas said:

In a lot of cultures and languages, "Army" means the military. In such cultures "ground forces" is used for the terrestrial warfare branch. It appears that Chinese is one of those languages in which the military usually just called the army. Despite this, I still don't understand why they translated "军" as army. I think it could have translated as armed forces or military to English. May the Chinese here explain?

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Just a guess, but maybe the army was the default expression of military force in ancient China, so it just makes sense to translate 军 as army.

BoraTas said:

In a lot of cultures and languages, "Army" means the military. In such cultures "ground forces" is used for the terrestrial warfare branch. It appears that Chinese is one of those languages in which the military usually just called the army. Despite this, I still don't understand why they translated "军" as army. I think it could have translated as armed forces or military to English. May the Chinese here explain?

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because PLA didn't have navy and airforce when it was founded...

Documentary about type 22 missile boat. It is not referred to as type 022. I wonder if all the 0 in the 055, 052, 054 and 056 etc. are miss-usage and should be dropped. Pay attention, type 22 is used by the Naval officer, not only the CCTV reporter.

BoraTas said:

In a lot of cultures and languages, "Army" means the military. In such cultures "ground forces" is used for the terrestrial warfare branch. It appears that Chinese is one of those languages in which the military usually just called the army. Despite this, I still don't understand why they translated "军" as army. I think it could have translated as armed forces or military to English. May the Chinese here explain?

Click to expand...

I'm not expert, but in my personal understanding of the history, 军 is used a lot to distinguish different powers competing for the highest power in this land, not necessarily describing the type of armed forces. It's very likely the 军 has both ground force and naval force, since they are merely serving different purposes in the battlefield, and they serve the same political power.
I think PLA just adopted the same concept in chinese tradition, and it's name clearly distinguished itself from the war lord's forces: PLA works for the liberation of all people on this land, and it succeeded to achieve this goal, though not fully completed before Taiwan reunites.

Can we get back on topic??

Quite the collector items, seen at Qingdao Naval Museum.