What a Parade in China Says About That Country’s View of the World

0:00Today on State of the World, what a parade in China says about that country's view of the global order.

0:10You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Wednesday, September 3rd. I'm Greg Dixon. China commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with a carefully choreographed military parade. And it was a serious spectacle, featuring thousands of marching troops and a massive showing of the latest military hardware. But this ceremony was about more than honoring history or displaying military power. It was about China showing where it thinks its place in the world is and should be. In a few minutes, we'll hear from a former U.S.

0:49ambassador to China on his reading of the event. First, NPR's Anthony Kuhn tells us more about what was said and who was in attendance at the parade.

1:03China's leader Xi Jinping stood between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on the rostrum overlooking Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Laser weapons, hypersonic missiles, and troops in precise lockstep moved past them. Xi Jinping shook hands with a few World War II veterans, all in their 90s and 100s. In a speech, he praised China's sacrifices and contribution to defeating fascism.

1:31Chinese people fought with an iron will against a powerful enemy and built a great wall with their flesh and blood. They achieved their first total victory in modern times in resisting foreign invasion. Historians, though, point out that China's then ruling nationalist government and troops did most of the fighting, and the Communist Party didn't take power until four years after the war. In a speech earlier this week, Xi hailed China's contribution to the post-war order, in which China was a founding member of the United Nations. Critics point out that it was the nationalist government that first joined the UN.

2:06Wang Wen is a former editor at the state-run newspaper The Global Times and currently an international relations expert at Beijing's People's University. He says the post-war order was intended to prevent a repeat of World War II, and China's committed to keeping it that way.

2:25Through this parade, China wants to show the world that it is a staunch defender of the post-war international order. We hope to demonstrate opposition to hegemony and power politics. Xi Jinping says that the world is now witnessing changes not seen in a century, especially the rise of China and the decline of Western democracies. China's leaders envision a new global order based on harmony, cooperation, and mutual respect, or in Xi Jinping's words, a community of shared destiny. Nadege Rolland is a distinguished fellow in China Studies at the National Bureau of Asian Research, a private think tank.

3:00She says that the envisioned community seems to include a lot of the authoritarian leaders watching China's parade. This is the core of this community of destiny that believes in autocracy and statism and illiberalism and historical revisionism, just to assert their power over their people. The parade today was the first time Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un had met in one place. The three did not sit down for a formal meeting this time, but they could do so soon, argues Du Jin-ho, director of the Eurasia Research Center at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, a private think tank in Seoul.

3:47They could hold trilateral meetings of their defense and foreign ministers. I don't think it'll be too long until there's a North Korea, China, Russia summit. Doe argues that Xi, Putin, and Kim could start cooperating on a global level. And that, he says, could make things very difficult for many countries, from Ukraine and South Korea to the U.S. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul. For more on China's view of its place in the world, we're going to hear now from Nicholas Burns. He was U.S. ambassador to China during the Biden administration, among other top diplomatic posts, and he now teaches international relations at Harvard University.

4:25He spoke with Michelle Martin. What's your sense of what this parade is all about? Well, it was quite a spectacle. It was very rich in symbolism, lots of messages being sent. I think first, the Chinese wanted to express to the world their expanding military power. That was center stage in this parade. Second was the embrace, kind of an alliance of autocrats, of dictators, with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping embracing each other with Kim Jong-un of North Korea and lots of other autocratic leaders in present. And I think third, and this is for Americans, Xi Jinping and Putin are trying to rewrite the history of the Second World War.

5:05Xi said two days ago that the main victors were China and the Soviet Union. Well, that's news to the United States because we were the savior of China, the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Second World War. We were the air force of China against the Japanese troops. And we They resupplied the Chinese military from India into Kunming and Yunnan province in western China. And that was a very dangerous operation for Americans. We suffered lots of losses. So they're doing this because they want to diminish the power of the United States today. Interesting. So those messages were really profound.

5:41You know, it's interesting because people will remember a few months ago, President Trump staged his own military parade in Washington, D.C., officially to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. So I think some people were wondering whether this in part was aimed at kind of countering that image. But what I hear you saying is it actually goes much deeper than that, about rewriting a much broader history than that of a few months ago. I think it does. You know, and I think President Trump was right yesterday to say you need to recognize the fact that the United States fundamentally was part of the war on behalf of nationalist China before the communist victory in 1949.

6:15In fact, it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who insisted that China be part of the post-war international order as a member of the UN Security Council. Churchill didn't agree, but Roosevelt got his way. So the Chinese don't want to recognize this history. The Communist Party of China today, that the United States actually saw China as a great power and wanted to perpetuate that. This is nationalist China of Chiang Kai-shek. This is before the Communist Revolution of 1949. So let's talk about the guest list. 26 heads of state in attendance, including Slovakia, a NATO member. What does this tell us about Beijing's influence in the current moment?

6:54Well, it was really quite remarkable. There wasn't a single high-level representative of a democratic country at that ceremony. And so these are all leaders who are complete autocrats or near autocrats in the case of the Slovak leader, in the case of the Hungarian leader, people like that. And I think the counterpoint for the United States is, look at the remarkable success of Japan and Germany, the two countries that attacked us during the Second World War, which we fought. And yet now they're genuine democracies. They're strong U.S. allies. And I think that's the best American counter message here, that we believe in democracy, that we believe in democratic alliances.

7:37And that's powerful. So a new world order dominated by China, is that taking shape, though? And what might that look like, as briefly as you can? China, Russia, and North Korea may be allied with Iran, want to counter the power of the United States. China certainly wants to overtake the U.S. in power in the Indo-Pacific, and we can't let that happen. So yesterday's spectacle really represents where international politics is today. That is former U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns. Ambassador Burns, thank you so much for joining us once again. Thanks so much.

8:19That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.