The parade is part of Beijing's continuing efforts to assert its own historical perspective on WWII, as well as showing off the country's military might.WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images
Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will be among the guests of honour at a victory parade in Beijing next week to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will inspect tens of thousands of troops as they march on Tiananmen Square in central Beijing on Sept. 3, in a major show of both military force and China’s diplomatic clout.
As well as Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim, 24 other foreign heads of state will be in attendance, China’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday, including Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
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Russia and China have remained firm allies despite an effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to isolate Beijing by softening Washington’s stance toward Moscow, a move some of his advisers have framed as a “reverse Nixon,” in reference to that U.S. leader courting China during the Sino-Soviet Split.
Speaking Tuesday, Mr. Xi noted that “in today’s world of turbulence and transformation, the China-Russia relationship is unparalleled in terms of stability, maturity and strategic significance among the major-country relations.”
In May, the Chinese leader joined Mr. Putin in Moscow for his own parade marking the 80th anniversary of the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany. Kyiv strongly protested the presence of foreign leaders at that event, saying it “whitewashed” Russia’s aggression and alleged war crimes in its continuing invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Kim’s attendance next week was announced Thursday, days after Mr. Trump met with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung at the White House and spoke fondly of the North Korean leader, with whom he held several historic but ultimately fruitless talks during his first term.
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Pyongyang has moved closer to Russia in recent years, with North Korea supplying arms and troops to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, but China remains a key ally of North Korea, particularly economically. Mr. Kim has not visited Beijing for six years, though this period includes the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when North Korea was essentially shut off from the rest of the world.
As well as showing off China’s military might – including cutting edge hypersonic weapons, fighter jets and missile defence systems – the parade will play a key role in continuing efforts by Beijing to assert its own historical perspective on the Second World War.
In recent years, Chinese officials and historians have sought to emphasize the often-overlooked role their country played in what Beijing calls the World Anti-Fascist War. At least 14 million Chinese were killed during Imperial Japan’s invasion and occupation of the country, which saw some of the worst atrocities of the entire conflict, including the Nanjing Massacre and human experimentation done by the notorious Unit 731.
“China was the first country to face the onslaught of the Axis Powers in 1937, two years before Britain and France, and four years before the United States,” writes historian Rana Mitter in Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937-1945. “By holding down large numbers of Japanese troops on the mainland, China was an important part of the overall Allied strategy.”
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The shadow of the conflict still looms, with continuing debates over the comparative role played by the Second World War-era Republican government of China, and Mao Zedong’s Communists, who emerged victorious in the Chinese civil war soon after the end of the wider conflict.
The debate is not just about history. In particular, Beijing has focused on the postwar Cairo and Potsdam conferences to bolster its territorial claims to Taiwan. Colonized by Japan, the island was returned to Chinese rule in 1945 and became a sanctuary for the defeated Republican government four years later.
“Taiwan’s restoration to China is a victorious outcome of WWII and an integral part of the postwar international order,” Mr. Xi wrote in May. “A series of instruments with legal effect under international law, including the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, have all affirmed China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.”
In response, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said the agreements, all made in 1943, “confirmed the sovereignty of the Republic of China over Taiwan.”
“At the time, the People’s Republic of China did not even exist,” it said, accusing Beijing of a “continuing effort to distort historical facts” to justify the forceful annexation of democratic Taiwan.