Their countries form a map of those parts of the world where China’s clout is strong: Central Asia (leaders of four of its five “stans” turned up), parts of South-East Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) Africa (South Africa, Egypt, Sudan) as well as, increasingly, eastern Europe. Thirty heads of state or government joined Mr Xi on the reviewing stand, including Vladimir Putin (hardly a notable guardian of the international order, but never mind). So the polite version is not, in fact, all that different from the blunt one. China argues that the main threat to the international status quo is the desire of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, to rewrite his country’s pacifist constitution. This was promptly toned down to “conveying to the world that China is devoted to safeguarding international order after world war two, rather than challenging it”. The parade’s purpose, it said, was to “deter Japan” and “show off China’s military might”. But an online article in the People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, earlier this year made clear what this meant. The government described the display as an international celebration, befitting the 70th anniversary of an Allied victory. This one came out of sequence, four years early. Such parades had always been reserved for the decennial anniversaries of the founding of the People’s Republic on October 1st 1949. But Mr Xi (pictured above) did not have to hold it.
It was China’s first large-scale military parade since 2009, the first to celebrate anything other than the Communist Party’s rule and the first involving foreign troops. The event marked Victory Day, which was invented as a holiday only in 2014 to mark the end of the People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, as the years leading up to and during the second world war are known in China. After displays of hardware and prowess in India, Pakistan, Russia and Taiwan this year, China held the most vainglorious march-past yet under clear blue skies (especially seeded for the purpose) in Tiananmen Square on September 3rd. Vast military parades may have gone out of fashion elsewhere, but Asian countries still like to strut their stuff.
AFTER weeks of market mayhem, it must have made a nice change for Xi Jinping, China’s president, to be reviewing ranks of smartly-dressed people who move in perfect synchronicity and do exactly what he tells them.
0 kommentar(er)
