‘Peace or war’: Xi showcases China’s military strength alongside Putin and Kim

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00:00Today, mankind is faced with the choice of peace or war,

00:04said the Chinese President Xi Jinping as he told 50,000 spectators in Tiananmen Square

00:09that the Chinese people firmly stand on the right side of history, as he put it.

00:14The country's largest ever military parade, then with Xi flanked by Russia's Vladimir Putin

00:18and North Korea's Kim Jong-un, a lavish event to mark 80 years since Japan's defeat at the end of World War II,

00:24with Putin and Kim pariahs in the West, the guests of honour.

00:30Today, humanity again has to choose between peace and war, between dialogue and confrontation,

00:41win-win cooperation or a zero-sum game.

00:46The Chinese people firmly stand on the right side of history and the progress of human civilization.

00:52We will remain committed to the path of peaceful development

00:55and join hands with all peoples around the world in building a community

00:59with a shared future for humanity.

01:04Well, our international affairs commentator, Doug Herbert, is with me here on set.

01:07Doug, very interesting watching those pictures at the top.

01:09You've got Xi Jinping, you've got Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin flanking him.

01:13And those other two have met and talked as well, haven't they?

01:16Yeah, all of these photo ops, right?

01:18You know, the threesome, the twosomes.

01:20It's interesting because, you know, we're living in the age of visual media, social media.

01:25Photo ops tend to sort of upstage the main event, the parade itself.

01:28We're talking more about that photo and these two together.

01:32Look, they're not natural-born partners, even though in recent months and years, Stuart,

01:36it's true that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un have found more and more common cause.

01:40We have seen them hold summits together.

01:42We also saw the glitzy summit that Vladimir Putin attended in Pyongyang,

01:47the North Korean capital, a few months back.

01:51And we also know about that so-called strategic cooperation treaty

01:55that both Kim Jong-un and Putin signed.

01:58What was it about?

01:59Well, the main plank of it, if you will, was they both pledged

02:03that in the event of, quote, aggression against either country,

02:07they would come to the other's aid.

02:08Now, North Korea, you can argue, has certainly been doing that.

02:13Kim Jong-un has been helping Putin directly to fight his war of aggression in Ukraine

02:18by sending troops up to 15,000, by some estimates, plus military equipment.

02:23What do we mean?

02:24Ballistic missiles, artillery that have helped Putin sustain and further fuel,

02:29continue his three-plus-year war against Ukraine.

02:33Russia, for its part, what has it done for Kim Jong-un lately?

02:36Well, it has sent, according to most interpretations of this accord,

02:42perhaps space technology, technology that could presumably be used maybe

02:46in Kim's missile program, ballistic missile program I was just mentioning,

02:50and also just the general insinuation that if there were to be a conflict

02:55on the Korean peninsula, i.e., between perhaps the North and the South

02:59and some other countries, perhaps Russia would step in and help

03:02the way Kim Jong-un has been helping Putin.

03:05So it's easy to sort of just, you know, sneer off and dismiss these two leaders

03:11sitting side by side today.

03:13But the photo op, it's more than just symbolism.

03:16These are really two autocratic leaders meeting out of necessity

03:20and pledging cooperation with each other, even as at the same time they wonder

03:25how enduring that cooperation might be when one or the other is in a period

03:31where they perhaps don't have to rely as much on the partner.

03:35Let's talk about the man in the middle as well, Xi Jinping,

03:37putting on this massive military display.

03:40What message is he trying to send, and how do you think it might be interpreted

03:43here in the West as well?

03:44Well, the message he's trying to send is, I'm strong.

03:48I am powerful.

03:49No, I'm not afraid of anyone.

03:51We, China, fear no one, especially not the hegemonic U.S. West,

03:57especially not, although not explicitly named, Donald Trump,

04:00who has been, according to his latest Truth Social posts,

04:06been following this relatively closely.

04:08He's also saying, China's not emerging.

04:12China's emerged.

04:13China is ready to step up and assume it's what he sees,

04:17its rightful role on an alternative new global stage,

04:21as a more responsible, as a more reliable,

04:25as a more mature potential counterweight to the U.S.-led hegemonic Western order.

04:32That's how he is pitching it.

04:33That's how he's presenting it.

04:35The military parade is the window dressing on that message.

04:38When you bring out all your fancy, shiny, new military objects,

04:41you asked how the West is, yeah, Western military analysts are all scrutinizing every single tank,

04:47every single aircraft that flew overhead today in Beijing.

04:51They're looking at that.

04:52It's not so much out of fear and apprehension,

04:55but also curiosity about what comes next.

04:58It's a strong message that Xi Jinping is putting his military might where his mouth is,

05:03and he's showing the world, not just saying to the world,

05:05that we are here and do not try to challenge us because it will not turn out well for you.

05:11And we shouldn't forget, of course, the parade set to mark or mark the 80th anniversary of Japan in World War II.

05:17But China sees this very differently as to how you or I might see it.

05:21Yeah.

05:21So first of all, the name of the war, right?

05:24We call it World War II, right?

05:26The Russians call it the Great Patriotic War, right?

05:29So for the Chinese, it's the War of the People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

05:34Very explicit and very clear.

05:37Japan invaded China in 1937.

05:40At the time, Japan was a relatively modernized Western-style military.

05:44China had practically nothing.

05:45It had no tanks.

05:46It had a few aircraft.

05:47That was it.

05:48What happened next, it was atrocities, was a brutal, brutal war that Japan waged against China,

05:55perhaps exemplified, if you read your history books, by the so-called Rape of Nanjing

06:00and all of the atrocities that happened there, urban warfare at its worst.

06:05What happened, though, next, and this is where we're seeing a little bit of historians say

06:09some revisionism or rewriting history,

06:11Xi Jinping trying to draw a direct line to the Communist Party's defeat of Japan in 1945

06:18and to today, the rise of the Communist Party at the helm of modern China.

06:24In fact, there were a nationalist government in place at the time.

06:28Yes, the Chinese Communist Party was on the rise, but it was just beginning its rise.

06:31It was the nationalists who showed really the real first resistance.

06:35And some historians say they deserve perhaps more credit than the communists

06:38for ultimately vanquishing the Japanese.

06:41I will note this.

06:42Also not mentioned, and this alludes perhaps to Trump's tweet, about the Western contribution.

06:48It's no little matter—first of all, Russian forces invaded the north of China,

06:52pushing back the Japanese towards the end of the war, helping in that victory.

06:57So there's Russia there.

06:58But there's also the not-so-small matter of the bombings, the nuclear bombings, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

07:04which directly led to the surrender of Japan.

07:07Those are not acknowledged.

07:09This is not to minimize the Chinese losses and casualties in that war.

07:14They were horrendous.

07:15Up to 20 million civilian and military deaths on the Chinese side,

07:19some of that due to the incompetence, gross incompetence, of the nationalist government

07:23that breached dikes, leading to some of history's deadliest floods,

07:26hundreds of thousands of Chinese unnecessarily dying as a result.

07:30Sure, it slowed the Japanese advance, but with absolutely grievous, fatal consequences for the Chinese.

07:36They lost millions of lives, as did the Soviets and their Red Army in World War II.

07:40In that sense, their narrative is absolutely right.

07:42They think they deserve more credit.

07:45They should be able to have a say in that global narrative about World War II,

07:48and also more of a say, by extension, in today's world and this world order.

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