Planes, patches, pilots, and propaganda
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Air Force billboard in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China:
Courtesy of The Great Translation Movement (TGTM) — here.
One glance and you can tell right away that it's a hodgepodge composite borrowed from disparate sources.
The motto consisting of four large characters in the top left is the easiest part:
Néng dǎ shèngzhàng
能打胜仗
"Capable of winning battles"
Bǎojiā wèiguó dānfù shǐmìng
保家卫国担负使命
"Protecting the country and safeguarding the nation are the missions we shoulder"
dānfù 担负 may be jiānfù 肩负, because my old computer screen is pixellated and blurry — doesn't really matter because they mean the same thing
or maybe it's xiànshēn 献身 ("dedicate ourselves" [to the mission])
Xīnhuá qū dàguō zhèn xuān
新华区大郭镇 宣
"Daguo Town, Xinhua District propaganda"
An image search yields this photo on 5/13/18 with the caption: "Those who boast like this are definitely a Chinese specialty. On the streets, billboards boasting victories feature American F-15s and F-22s, and Italian pilots. This is probably what they call the way of boasting with Chinese characteristics?"
The F-15s are Eagles and the F-22s are Raptors.
Another image of this photo showed up on Reddit in June 2022. Here's the file. And here's the source site (near the bottom).
And this one, from Jan 4, 2022. It is larger and clearer, so that even on my computer I can see that the disputed two characters should be xiànshēn 献身 ("dedicate ourselves" [to the mission]).
In sum, take all Chinese propaganda, news, etc. with a Sahara of salt.
Selected readings
- "The Great Translation Movement" (4/19/22)
- "Malign Woodpeckers and Other Hegemonic Behavior" (4/18/22)
- "'Suffered We Protect They'" (12/22/14)
- "Language and politics: The use of English 'OR' in Chinese official propaganda" (8/11/23)
[Thanks to Mark Metcalf; David Stilwell; John Tkacik; Xinyi Ye; Yijie Zhang]
Philip Taylor said,
March 1, 2026 @ 6:31 am
"In sum, take all Chinese propaganda, news, etc. with a Sahara of salt" — I would respectfully suggest that the word "Chinese" is redundant in this context. AI-enhanced version of the image at https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/eseoh7kuyutoemo1tbigy/9rhmngf4zz791.jpeg?rlkey=gxmu9zytuf3ugq6k3tfvaudly&dl=0
ajay said,
March 2, 2026 @ 9:39 am
The US Republican party is also prone to doing this sort of thing – using a photo of a Russian warship to celebrate Navy Day, silhouettes of Russian soldiers to illustrate a post about the US army, etc. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/465717-gop-lawmaker-mistakenly-wishes-navy-happy-birthday-with-photo-of-russian-ship/
Not, as far as I remember, on posters, at least not yet.
John Finkbiner said,
March 3, 2026 @ 8:44 am
To me the strangest thing about the image is that the person giving us a thumbs up appears to be flying with the canopy open.
ajay said,
March 3, 2026 @ 10:54 am
Open cockpits are far superior. You can tell how fast you're going by the noise of the wind in the wires, and you can work out your angle of attack by whether your silk scarf is going up or down in the slipstream. (Really. These were actual arguments used in the 1930s against closed-cockpit fighters.)
Philip Taylor said,
March 4, 2026 @ 3:28 am
I am (genuinely) surprised that the most obvious advantage of an open cockpit (in an emergency, one cannot be trapped by a canopy that refuses to open) was not adduced in support of the open-cockpit devotees' claims.
ajay said,
March 4, 2026 @ 4:18 am
Philip – as far as I know, it wasn't. It might have been – but remember that the wind-in-the-wires generation of fighter pilots were also used to flying without parachutes, so being able to bale out quickly was not really a consideration.
Vaguely related anecdote – during the fiasco at Desert One, one soldier on board a helicopter on the ground was knocked unconscious when a taxiing aircraft collided with his helicopter and burst into flames. He woke up, still very dazed, to find himself in a smoke- and flame-filled helicopter, assumed that his helicopter had been hit by anti-aircraft fire while in flight, rolled across the deck and threw himself out, and was rather surprised to land on the sand two feet below.
When he related this story afterwards, he was asked "but if you thought your helicopter was in flight, what were you hoping to achieve by throwing yourself out?"
"One problem at a time, sir," he replied.