Financial Times
Charles Clover in Beijing
August 25, 2015
China will next week make a public display of its weaponry in a military parade through the heart of Beijing, highlighting its most modern tanks, missiles, fighter jets and attack helicopters a fortnight before president Xi Jinping heads to Washington for talks.
On Tuesday, Beijing announced that 49 countries had agreed to send leaders or representatives to the September 3 parade, which marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war.
China insists the event is a sincere attempt at healing and reconciliation, but some countries suspect it is more an exercise in drumbeating nationalism. With tanks set to roll through symbolically resonant Tiananmen Square, site of the bloody 1989 massacre, many are either staying away or sending lower-level representation.
Leaders such as South Korea’s Park Geun-hye, who will attend the ceremonies but not the parade, have placed strict limits on their participation.
This week Japan announced that prime minister Shinzo Abe would not take part, while the US embassy in Beijing said on Tuesday that it would “make available information about US participation closer to the event”.
Britain has said it will send Kenneth Clarke, former justice minister, as an envoy. Germany will be represented by its ambassador. France will send Laurent Fabius, its foreign minister.
Of UN Security Council members, only Russian president Vladimir Putin has confirmed his attendance, and a complement of Russian troops will march with Chinese troops. Mr Putin hosted Mr Xi in May for Russia’s own victory parade, which was widely boycotted among global leaders because of the war in Ukraine.
The parade will include 12,000 Chinese soldiers who were trained in precision marching by practising blindfolded in sand, with their steps measured for accuracy to the nearest millimetre, according to military experts.
However, the star of the show will be the hardware on display.
On Sunday J-15 fighter jets and Z-19 attack helicopters were visible over Beijing during a rehearsal in which 189 aircraft filled the sky with plumes of coloured smoke and flew in formation to display the number 70. Meanwhile, formations of tanks and missile launchers rolled through the heart of the capital.
China has not publicly confirmed what equipment will be included in the parade, and in rehearsals many advanced weapons have been concealed under tarpaulins. But experts expect that among them will be a truck-mounted version of the DF-41 intercontinental missile, which carries multiple warheads and was tested earlier this year.
“I expect the featured weapon of the parade will be the DF-41,” said Yue Gang, a former officer in the People’s Liberation Army. He said that while satellite images of the weapon had been published, this would be its first public display.
Shao Yongling, a colonel at the PLA’s Second Artillery Command College, told the Communist party-affiliated Global Times that Sunday’s rehearsal was the first time the DF-21D “carrier killer” missile had been displayed in public. Many US experts say the US has no defence against the missile, which flies at up to 15 times the speed of sound and is aimed at destroying surface ships.
On Tuesday China rejected charges that the parade amounted to a flexing of muscles.
“If someone says this is flexing anything, it is a flexing of the spirit of peace by the Chinese people,” said Zhang Ming, deputy foreign minister.
Few are surprised Japan has elected to stay away from the commemoration, which is officially referred to by Chinese state media as “victory day in the war against Japanese aggression”.
China insists Mr Abe’s apology this month for Japan’s wartime crimes was not repentant enough.
Mr Zhang said on Tuesday that the celebration was not directed against Tokyo.
“We have said time and again that this commemoration does not target any third party or Japan or the Japanese people”, he said.
