Military personnel take part in a military parade on Wednesday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender.Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press
Chinese leader Xi Jinping oversaw a massive parade of his country’s armed forces in Beijing on Wednesday, as China marked 80 years since the end of World War II with a grand display of military might.
Flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Mr. Xi gave a speech from the Gate of Heavenly Peace overlooking Tiananmen Square, in which he said China’s path to national rejuvenation was “irresistible.”
Noting the country’s sacrifice during World War II, when China was devastated by Japanese invasion and occupation, Mr. Xi said that “faced with struggles between good and evil, progress and reaction, the Chinese people rallied together” to defy the enemy and rebuild.
“The Chinese nation is a great nation that will never be intimidated by any bullies,” Mr. Xi said. “Today, humanity again has to choose between peace and war, dialogue and confrontation, win-win cooperation and zero-sum game. The Chinese people firmly stand on the right side of history.”
Mr. Xi then inspected the massed ranks of troops and armaments, greeting battalions of the People’s Liberation Army in turn from an open-top black limousine in a carefully synchronized display. More than 22,000 soldiers took part in Wednesday’s parade, which also featured cutting edge weaponry, including new missile systems, tanks, and aircraft.
Armoured vehicles and soldiers are seen during the military parade in Beijing.Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
China was sending a message that “its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is on track to become the world’s most advanced fighting force, equipped with cutting-edge homegrown technology after a decade of pursuing self-reliance,” Yu Jie, Senior Research Fellow on China at Chatham House, wrote Tuesday. “And the message is loud and clear – China can and will deter its adversaries while asserting its security claims in Asia.”
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As well as the military strength on display, Wednesday’s event was a demonstration of China’s diplomatic clout in the face of pressure from the United States, which under President Donald Trump has tried to isolate Beijing with crippling tariffs and pressure on its trading partners.
In an editorial this week, the state-run news agency Xinhua said “the Chinese nation will not allow itself to be humiliated or bullied again, as it was by imperialist powers in the past.”
As well as Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim, 24 other foreign heads of state were in attendance Wednesday, including Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko, Iran’s President Masoud Pezashkian and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Many other countries and international organizations also sent representatives.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrive at the military parade.Sergei Bobylev/The Associated Press
Ahead of his speech, Mr. Xi was shown on state TV walking and laughing alongside Mr. Kim and Mr. Putin, who then stood alongside him in positions of honour on the Tiananmen rostrum.
On Tuesday, Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi hailed their alliance as an “example of major-country relations,” and promised to increase engagement as they signed more than 20 bilateral agreements, including allowing Russians to visit China visa-free.
Their meeting followed a summit of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization earlier this week, a key plank in Mr. Xi’s ongoing efforts to supplant the Western-led post World War II order and create what he called a “more just and equitable global governance system.”
Mr. Putin on Monday praised the SCO as having revived “genuine multilateralism” and laying the “political and socio-economic groundwork for the formation of a new system of stability and security in Eurasia.”
“This security system, unlike Euro-centric and Euro-Atlantic models, would genuinely consider the interests of a broad range of countries, be truly balanced, and would not allow one country to ensure its own security at the expense of others,” Mr. Putin said.
A Xi’an Y-20 Kunpeng aircraft and two jet fighters perform an air refueling maneuver.PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images
Both Beijing and Moscow have sought to use recent commemorations of the end of World War II to assert what they see as the correct historical interpretation of their country’s sacrifices during that war.
“China and the Soviet Union were the principal theatres of that war in Asia and Europe respectively,” Mr. Xi wrote ahead of a visit to Moscow in May. “The two countries served as the mainstay of resistance against Japanese militarism and German Nazism, making pivotal contribution to the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War.”
Wednesday’s parade also served to mark China’s success in the decades since World War II, rebuilding from one of its lowest points to become a global superpower once again. In describing the themes and messages of Wednesday’s’ parade, a narrator on state TV said the event showed “the will of history never stops under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China.”