“This is not aimed at any other country,” Qu said. Nor was the parade intended as an attack on Japan. “Demonstrating advanced weapons is common practice around the world in military parades,” he told a televised press conference. Qu dismissed claims that such a large-scale show of military hardware was a bellicose move. Qu Rui, the PLA parade organiser, said 84% of the “homemade” military armament on show would never have been publicly showcased before. “It will be countries where they either have direct economic or political benefits from being seen to be close to China or those for whom there is no domestic price to be paid,” Bisley said. He predicted the stands in Tiananmen Square would instead be graced by China’s “authoritarian fan club”. Photograph: Alexander Vilf/Host Photo Agency/Ria Novosti via Getty Images But most western leaders are expected to shun the event, reluctant to be seen supporting what many view as a crude attempt to use history for political ends. Invitations were extended to world leaders, including Barack Obama, David Cameron, Narendra Modi and Tony Abbott. Meanwhile, coal-fired power plants and more than 10,000 factories will be forced to halt or slow production in a bid to ensure the parade will take place under blue skies. Starting this weekend one of the city’s key entertainment districts is being placed under martial law. Some 850,000 “citizen guards” are being deployed to police “every street every alley” of the capital. For weeks China’s state-controlled newspapers have been packed with stories detailing preparations.Īround 2.8m plant pots are being installed across the city “featuring themes of peace and victory”, Xinhua, China’s official news agency, has reported. Since June, thousands of troops have been practicing for the event at a specially built replica of Tiananmen Square in suburban Beijing. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Imagesīeijing is throwing huge resources at the 3 September parade. Workers assemble temporary seating in front of a giant portrait of Mao Zedong. It is very, very much about trying to solidify and put substance behind this growing idea of Chinese national identification: the idea of identity being created through the glorious events of the relatively recent past of which the second world war has become one.” “But for me the emphasis is overwhelmingly domestic. “ this very strong sense that China’s contribution to the war effort is pretty much unknown in the west and underappreciated,” said Mitter, the author of Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II. About 15 million Chinese people lost their lives between 1937 – when full-scale fighting with Japan broke out – and 1945. Rana Mitter, the director of the University of Oxford’s Dickson Poon China Centre, said there was a genuine desire among many Chinese to see their country’s contribution to the allied victory recognised. This is an old-school tub-thumping view of national greatness and how you express that,” he said. “This is not a sophisticated cosmopolitan nationalism. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/APīeijing was attempting to use a “Stalinist-style parade” to remind China’s 1.3 billion citizens how only the Communist party could keep their country strong and safe, Bisley said. Workers take a break from building a floral replica of the Great Wall at Tiananmen Square.
“You are not doing this to impress the Pentagon.” “It seems to me that the whole thing is really for internal consumption and is really part and parcel of this ramping up of the nationalist rhetoric in the story that Xi and co are pushing,” said Nick Bisley, the executive director of La Trobe Asia. Partly it is intended to use the country’s increasingly sophisticated military capabilities to flex China’s muscles on the world stage.īut most experts agree that Xi’s key target audience is the Chinese public. Partly it is an attempt to pile political pressure on regional rival Japan – with whom Beijing is embroiled in a festering territorial dispute in the East China Sea – by reminding the world of the horrific crimes its troops committed during the war years. Beijing has held colossal military parades before – most recently in 2009 to mark 60 years since the communist takeover – but never to mark the end of the second world war.Ĭhina’s observers say Xi’s decision to put on such a massive show has several intentions.
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