A website affiliated with the Chinese military has released a music video showing off personnel, and ballistic missiles from its newly-established People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces.
The video, released on Feb. 13 by js7tv.cn, features the military branch’s theme song, entitled “March of the Rocket Forces.”
The lyrics mirror the anthem of the former Second Artillery Corps, which the Rocket Forces replaced starting Jan. 1.
The vast and mighty Eastern Wind sounds a deafening thunder.
The glorious Rocket Forces are these.
Longswords of a great power shake the blue cosmos,
A steel-cast Great Wall are we.
Following the Party’s command with hot blood and loyal devotion.
Forging a strategic fist of iron, safeguarding peace and stability.
Winds of a raging inferno, shocking heaven and earth
With the strength to do battle and seize victorious merit.
Advance! Advance! Heroic Rocket Forces!
The lyrics make immediate reference to the Eastern Wind, which is also the translation of “Dong Feng,” the name for China’s strategic missile family.
Having taken the place of the old Second Artillery Corps, the 100,000-strong Rocket Forces commands thousands of missiles and most or all of China’s nuclear arsenal. The recent changes came as one component of a larger PLA-wide military reform currently being implemented.
Chinese nuclear weapon delivery systems have been making rapid improvements in recent years. China deploys scores of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can hit all of Eurasia and North America with multiple warheads, in addition to a far greater arsenal of lesser-ranged rocketry. At sea, new submarines built for the PLA Navy carry missiles capable of devastating the U.S. west coast from Chinese home waters.
The total number of Chinese nuclear weapons is unknown. Estimates vary wildly between 250 and 3,000 warheads.
