Cartoon by Burkhard Mohr

Military reveals and bold messaging: five key takeaways from China’s big parade

Helen Davidson

The Guardian: Xi Jinping presided over China’s largest-ever military parade, orchestrated to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, which China calls the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

The event caps off a big week of diplomacy for China’s leader, coming just days after the Chinese city of Tianjin hosted a major summit for leaders of the global south.

Who was there
Dozens of world leaders – mostly from non-western nations – attended the event, but it was the grand entrance of Xi Jinping accompanied by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korean Kim Jong-un that grabbed the most attention. The image of the three authoritarian strongmen chatting and shaking hands as they walked the red carpet sent a message of defiance to the west, according to analysts.

Other attendees included Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko, Iranian president Masoud Pezashkian, Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto and Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.

Who wasn’t there
Leaders from the US, western Europe, Japan, India and South Korea were not in attendance.

Among Chinese officials, there were not many significant absences immediately apparent. Missing Chinese Communist party (CCP) officials is one of the ways that China watchers figure out who might have fallen out of favour with Xi.

Former Chinese leader Hu Jintao and former premier Zhu Rongji were not seen. Both are elderly, and Hu has been seen only once since he was unceremoniously bundled out of the 20th party congress in 2022.

Messages sent and received
The highly choreographed display and the formidable guest list were designed to send a message to the US and its allies about the strength of China today.

In his opening address Xi said the world was facing “a choice between peace and war”, warning that China was a great nation that “is never intimidated by any bullies”, a likely veiled reference to the US and its allies. He said the past showed that Chinese people always rallied together “to defy the enemy” when faced with adversity.

The images of Xi, Putin and Kim showed that “China is unafraid to stand by its friends and be their literal fellow traveller, even and perhaps especially when they are pariahs in the court of international public opinion,” said Wen-ti Sung, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

The parade drew an almost immediate reaction from US president Donald Trump.

“Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account >>>