– ‘Immoral misstep’ –
The parade will showcase 12,000 Chinese soldiers as well as an array of domestically-produced military hardware, and close to 1,000 foreign troops from countries including Russia will participate.
The People’s Liberation Army has promised that 84 percent of the firepower on display will be shown for the first time and according to state media reports the weapons will include carrier-based aircraft, long distance bombers and various types of missiles.
The sight of military might in Tiananmen Square, where Chinese troops crushed protests in 1989, is likely to be keeping some democratic-minded Western leaders away.
Chinese media seem to have grudgingly accepted the absence of a top visitor from Washington, even ahead of a official trip by Xi to the US this month.
But Beijing sees Tokyo as insufficiently contrite for its 20th-century invasion and occupation of China, which independent historians estimate cost 15 to 20 million lives, and Japan has been extended no such courtesy.
“China has adopted a calm attitude toward the absence of some Western leaders,” the Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling party, said in an editorial Monday.
“However, Japan is busy hiding itself from this grand event,” it went on, accusing Tokyo of “pettiness”, an “immoral misstep”, and “obviously embarrassing itself”.
The guest list includes the leaders of Kazakhstan and Venezuela, as well as Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir – indicted by the International Criminal Court.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is by far the most high-profile foreign leader attending after Xi went to a similar event in Moscow in May, which was also shunned by major Western leaders over the annexation of Crimea and fighting in eastern Ukraine.
More mainstream guests include South Korea’s Park Geun-Hye, whose country was colonised by Japan, Jacob Zuma of South Africa – which with China is part of the BRICS groups of major emerging economies – and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
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