China casts itself as peacemaker
Parade mixes display of weaponry with extension of olive branch
BEIJING — At a military parade Thursday to mark the end of the Second World War, President Xi Jinping announced that China will cut 300,000 soldiers from the country’s two-million-strong armed forces, a move that would accelerate his campaign to modernize the military, shifting resources from land to sea and air.
Xi pitched the cuts, and indeed, the entire event, as a peace offering — a tough sell given growing concerns in Asia and around the world about China’s maritime claims and military might.
The parade featured 12,000 troops, high-tech weapons gleaming in the sun, and a 70-gun salute. There were also olive branches, floral arrangements in the shape of doves and talk of the “sunshine of peace.”
“Regardless of the progress of events, China will never seek hegemony, China will never seek to expand and will never inflict the tragedies it suffered in the past upon others,” Xi said.
The public spectacle was part militarism, part memorial — a complicated bit of messaging that reflected the Communist party’s conflicted view of history and its search for a narrative to carry the country through the years ahead.
The parade was an effort to instil political loyalty and national pride — the fulfilment of Xi’s vision of a “rejuvenated” nation. For the outside world, the parade was supposed to be a show of strength, a goose-stepping reminder that the strong, respected China of today is not the country that suffered during the Second World War.
That message was somewhat muted because certain foreign luminaries did not attend: Russian President Vladimir Putin and South Korean President Park Geun-hye joined dignitaries from 30 countries in the grandstands, but top leaders from the United States, Britain and France did not — wary, perhaps, of being present at an event that could demonize their partner Japan or of being photographed watching tanks rolling through Tiananmen Square.
In this sense, the parade was about much more than what happened 70 years ago.
“It’s all about Second World War, but it’s also not about Second World War at all,” Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Program at the University of California at San Diego, said in the run-up to the event.
To the extent that the event was about history, it was about reclaiming and recasting China’s role in the war. China says its contribution to the fight against Japan has been overlooked and wants to call international attention to its “hugely crucial” role in the Allied victory.
Although China often criticizes Japan’s “incorrect” view of history, China’s leaders take liberties in telling their story. Most historians agree, for instance, that it was Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces, not Mao Zedong’s communists, that led the fight against the Japanese — a fact the Chinese Communist Party has played down.
Last month, a poster for a state-backed film about the Cairo Declaration, a 1943 statement by Allied leaders that set out plans for defeating Japan, featured a picture of Mao — even though it was Chiang Kai-shek, not Mao, who was present.
This year, some veterans from the Nationalist army were invited to play a role in the parade, as part of what Rana Mitter, a professor of Chinese history at Oxford University sees as a broadening of China’s narrative about the war.
The state was also signalling how it sees itself — on equal footing with the United States. “They are saying, ‘Look, the U.S. may have delivered the coup de grace — but,’ ” said John Delury, a scholar of China and Korea at Yonsei University in Seoul.
The parade was also about rallying the troops.
“In the experience of the Chinese Communist Party, the regime’s power comes from guns,” said Chinese historian Zhang Lifan. “To hold on to the regime and his personal power and position, it is very important for (Xi) to have control over the armed forces.”
“It’s all about Second World War, butit’s also not about Second World War a tall.
SUSAN SHIRK CHAIR OF THE 21ST CENTURY CHINA PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO