Tencent releases simulated war-porn video to celebrate peace

Today, China’s pulling out all the stops for a celebration of the end of World War II. Sure, it’s a little bit late for that, but this year marks the 70th anniversary of the conflict’s resolution. In a move that arguably misses the point of celebrating the end of a war, China’s government is marking the occasion with a massive military parade.

Following along with that theme, one of China’s biggest tech companies has decided to get in on the “celebration” of peace by taking the pro-military chest-thumping a step further.

Tencent, China’s US$200 billion social and gaming giant, has released this weird video for the anniversary. It depicts, in realistic 3D graphics comparable to a video game, a hypothetical future scenario in which China’s naval bases have been attacked by “some military alliance” for unspecified reasons. China mobilizes its entire military for a counter-attack, and from there it’s basically just military hardware porn and a whole lot of explosions.

China will shoot a lot of missiles at this hypothetical future enemy, Tencent suggests.

“China has successfully attacked the enemy base, and the enemy is forced to concede to peace terms,” reads the screen at the end of the video as the camera pulls back across the smoking ruins of wherever it was China counter-attacked. A Chinese flag flutters over the apocalyptic landscape.

Boom go the enemy ships. It’s a celebration of peace!

“We love peace, but we must prepare to fight potential future wars,” the video’s penultimate title card reads before giving way to a message commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII.

(If the video embed below isn’t working for you or if you’re in China, click here to watch the video directly on Tencent’s site. Be warned: you’ll probably have to sit through a pre-roll ad.)

The video was apparently produced by Tencent’s news team in collaboration with a Beijing animation studio called Visions.