China's Military Parade: Japan Urges Not to Participate With Putin-Kim

Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are among the world leaders who will attend a military parade with President Xi Jinping in Beijing next week, in a show of collective defiance amid western pressure.

No western leaders will be among the 26 foreign heads of state and government attending the parade next week – with the exception of Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia, a member of the European Union – according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Against the backdrop of China’s growing military might during the Victory Day parade on 3 September, the three leaders will project a major show of solidarity.

Russia, which Beijing counts as a strategic partner, has been battered by multiple rounds of western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with its economy on the brink of slipping into recession. Putin, wanted by the international criminal court, last travelled in China in 2024.

North Korea, a formal treaty ally of China’s, has been under UN security council sanctions since 2006 over its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Kim last visited China in January 2019.

Those attending the parade marking the formal surrender of Japan during the second world war will include Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko, Iran’s president Masoud Pezashkian, Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto and South Korea’s National Assembly speaker Woo Won-shik, said Chinese assistant foreign minister Hong Lei at a news conference.

Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vucic will also attend the parade.

The United Nations will be represented by under secretary general Li Junhua, who previously served in various capacities at the Chinese foreign ministry, including time as the Chinese ambassador to Italy, San Marino and Myanmar.

On the day, President Xi Jinping will survey tens of thousands of troops at Tiananmen Square alongside the foreign dignitaries and senior Chinese leaders.

The highly choreographed parade, to be one of China’s largest in years, will showcase cutting-edge equipment like fighter jets, missile defence systems and hypersonic weapons.

Millions of Chinese people were killed during a prolonged war with imperial Japan in the 1930s and 40s, which became part of a global conflict following Tokyo’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Beijing’s Communist Party has held a series of blockbuster events in recent years to commemorate its wartime resistance, vowing that China will never be brought to its knees in such a way again.