"The appearance of Putin and Kim alongside Xi, said far more about China’s future than its past"

 

There was an extraordinary demonstration of power in Tiananmen Square on Wednesday, as the world was given a glimpse of China’s military strength in a week that witnessed a dramatic eastwards shift on the global axis of influence. Xi Jinping, backed by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, soaked in the spectacle: an act of diplomatic grandstanding that provided a clear message to the west.

It started on Sunday, with more than 20 heads of state attending the opening of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin. Among them were strongmen from across Europe and Asia including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev and Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko. The summit was also Narendra Modi’s first visit to China in seven years and came soon after Donald Trump’s “tariff tantrum” had pushed the Indian prime minister straight into the hands of Xi.

Wednesday’s parade was to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in the second world war, but as Justin McCurry explained, the event, and the appearance of Putin and Kim alongside Xi, said far more about China’s future than its past.

There was a great deal for our global team of reporters to try to decipher about this vaguely defined new anti-western alliance. Senior China correspondent Amy Hawkins spoke with Nosheen Iqbal for Today in Focus to discuss what this gathering tells us about China’s global ambitions. Helen Davidson, in Taipei, looked at the meaning behind Xi’s speech, in which he said the world was facing a choice between peace or war, while Justin considered the symbolism of the international debut of the North Korean leader’s daughter. 

Russian affairs correspondent Pjotr Sauer also looked at Putin’s obsession with living forever, after being caught on a hot mic musing with Xi about how organ transplants might lead to immortality – a fleeting, unguarded moment that told us much about how these so-called strongmen see themselves.

The Guardian’s coverage of this diplomatic shift is helped, like every subject we cover – from the climate crisis to the impact of AI – by our multilateral global approach. This allows us to report in depth from Europe and Washington on the reaction in the west, and on what it means for China’s Asia-Pacific neighbours, including Australia, where former Victoria premier Daniel Andrews has faced big criticism for attending the parade. Our coverage is also enhanced by the experience of expert commentators such as Simon Tisdall, who blamed this new grouping on Donald Trump’s extraordinary belligerence.

As dramatic as the images from China were, there is as yet nothing simple or certain about this new “axis of upheaval”. As our editorial put it: “It would be folly to ignore Beijing’s statement of intent. But it would also be foolish to confuse it with a statement of fact. The future is still being written. Governments in Asia, Europe and elsewhere still have choices to make; and those will be shaped by US actions as much as Chinese.”

-The Guardian