Si vis pacem, para bellum. The spirit of this Latin adage is in vivid display on September 3rd, 2025, at the heart of Beijing. Under the watchful gaze of history, China unleashes a spectacle of might and majesty unlike any the world has witnessed.
The ground trembles as columns of fourth-generation tanks and armored vehicles roll past, a river of steel stretching as far as the eye can see.
Above, the sky is momentarily blotted out by squadrons of advanced fighter jets and carrier-based aircraft, their roaring engines a deafening testament to China's comprehensive air and land capabilities, all showcased with flawless coordination.
But what is truly setting this parade apart is the hardware being unveiled for the first time—weapons that signal a clear leap into the next generation of warfare: directed-energy systems, high-powered microwave emitters, robotic combat systems powered by AI, technologies that promise to command the battlefield of the future.
As the nation commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, it is not merely a remembrance of the past that will march through the capital's grand avenues, but a thunderous proclamation of the future.
This massive parade of power forces an unavoidable question: How does this burgeoning power align with Beijing's long-professed commitment to global peace?
To answer the question and understand the significance behind this parade, we need to consider the historical context and the current geopolitical climate.
During the fourteen-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which constitutes the Eastern theatre of WWII, the Chinese people made immense sacrifices and contributed significantly to the global victory over fascism. According to incomplete statistics, Chinese forces eliminated approximately 1.5 million Japanese troops, captured over 200,000 soldiers, and engaged more than half of Japan’s total ground forces. For much of the full-scale conflict, China’s theater tied down about 70% of the Japanese army, effectively curbing the expansion of Japanese militarism.
This victory came at a tremendous cost: total military and civilian casualties exceeded 35 million, including some 3.8 million military personnel and over 31 million civilians. Direct economic losses surpassed $100 billion, with indirect losses exceeding $500 billion (based on the exchange rate at the time). Countless cities and villages were reduced to ruins, and innumerable cultural relics and historic sites were plundered.
Through extraordinary resilience and immense sacrifice, the Chinese people sustained the main Eastern front of the global anti-fascist war, laying a crucial foundation for the eventual triumph.
The military parade in China is not only a solemn tribute to history, but also a powerful response to the disturbing trend of historical distortion in today’s world. Against the backdrop of intertwined globalization and de-globalization, and multipolar competition, this parade serves as a bridge between past and future. It directly counters attempts by Japan’s right wing to downplay its aggression and systematically responds to Western distortions of the World War II narrative. By showcasing military modernization achievements, China is reshaping discourse over WWII history in its own way, thereby providing solid support for the postwar international order.
The distortion of WWII history, or as CCP likes to call it, historical nihilism, in Japan has taken shape in three ways: textbook revisions, political statements, and distorted commemorative practices. In textbooks, since the 1950s there have been three waves of systemic backsliding: in the first wave in 1955, the new editions removed critical accounts of the Pacific War and avoided mentioning Japan’s invasion of China; in the second wave in the 1980s, “invasion of North China” was changed to “advance into North China,” dressing militarist actions in a veneer of legitimacy; from the 1990s to the present, a third wave has gone even further, recasting wars of aggression as “self-defence actions” to “liberate Asia,” changing forced labor to “participation,” and adding claims that China’s Diaoyu Islands are Japan’s “inherent territory.”
Starting in April 2025, new junior high school textbooks rolled out nationwide in Japan show three troubling trends in their treatment of the war: vague and stigmatizing descriptions of major events—for example, Teikoku-Shoin, one of the major Japanese textbook and map publishers, glosses over the “Nanjing Massacre” as the “Nanjing Incident” in the history textbooks they published, while the largest publisher of textbooks--Tokyo Shoseki, mentions it only in a footnote, claiming “the number of victims remains undetermined and is still under study”; structurally, the overall arc of the war is artificially fragmented, with most textbooks separating the 1931–1945 invasion of China from the Pacific War, fostering a false narrative of “passive engagement”; and a tactical shift by right-wing forces toward pushing an overall rightward tilt in textbooks, achieving “historical filtering” through political intervention by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
The root cause of Japan’s historical nihilism lies in the incompleteness of the Tokyo Trial after WWII. Unlike the Nuremberg Tribunal’s comprehensive prosecution of German war criminals, the Tokyo Tribunal did not indict the Japanese emperor, who, as the supreme military commander since the First Sino-Japanese War, should have borne primary responsibility. Moreover, some suspected Class-A war criminals—such as Nobusuke Kishi—were never tried yet went on to serve as prime minister after the war, leaving historical loopholes that have given right-wing forces room to manoeuvre.
“Eighty years ago on August 6, the United States and Japan ended a devastating war in the Pacific. Yet for eight decades, the United States and Japan have stood shoulder to shoulder in defense of peace and prosperity in the Pacific.”
This was what Tammy Bruce, U.S. State Department Spokesperson, posted on a Chinese social media account of the US Embassy to China. No surprise, it immediately caused a stir in global public opinion. From this statement, one can be forgiven to think that the US and Japan were allies fighting some other nations during the Pacific War.
The statement was considered by many as a deliberate effort to downplay the brutal nature of Japanese aggression during the war, ignoring historical facts, and misrepresenting the roles of the allied powers. This approach was identified as part of a broader pattern where the U.S. selectively narrates World War II history to emphasize its own and allies' roles, while marginalizing Soviet and Asian contributions, thus politicizing a complex global history for contemporary strategic interests.
In the West, historical nihilism is primarily expressed through “Western-centrism” and systemic neglect of the Eastern theatre. In textbooks, British secondary school history curricula exclude China’s war against Japan from required content, while French textbooks delete chapters on the Chinese front, emphasizing only Allied aid and entirely ignoring the historical fact that the Chinese front tied down the main forces of the Japanese army for 14 years and accounted for half of total enemy casualties. This approach leaves younger generations in the West without basic awareness of China’s contributions in WWII, fostering a partial and skewed view of history.
In museum exhibits, the Berlin Museum quietly removed panels on the Nanjing Massacre, and Japan’s Ministry of Education eliminated the “comfort women” entry, creating visible gaps in WWII historical memory within Western societies.
In August 2025, the U.S. Embassy in China posted on Weibo, “Was the bombing of Hiroshima agreed upon by the U.S. and Japan?”, linking the Hiroshima nuclear bombing to a “joint pursuit of peace” by the U.S. and Japan, which Chinese netizens condemned as an outrageous claim. Such distortions of historical narrative essentially recast Japan as a “victim” rather than an “aggressor.”
Western media and corporate behavior also show insensitivity to historical issues. For example, long-running interpretations of the Potsdam Proclamation in the U.S. downplay the Soviet contribution to the fall of Berlin, crediting victory in WWII primarily to the U.S. and the U.K. This skewed historical cognition not only impairs a comprehensive international understanding of WWII but also provides an external enabling environment for Japan’s right-wing forces.
The deeper reason behind Western historical distortion is the calculation of realpolitik, to shape the collective memory and global opinion for great-power confrontation. After WWII, for geopolitical reasons, the United States incorporated Japan into its security system as a frontline against the socialist bloc. This strategic choice led the West to long overlook Japan’s militarist past and even indulge it in some respects. Today, amid shifting international dynamics, Western countries are attempting to maintain global primacy through reconstructed historical narratives.
China’s choice of September 3rd for the parade has profound historical foundations. On September 2nd, 1945, the Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender, and September 3rd was formally designated as the Victory Day of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. The 2025 parade is the second such event held on a non–National Day date since 2015 and the first major parade six years after the 2019 National Day parade.
The strategic considerations for the 2025 parade are twofold: first, strengthening historical memory to counter historical nihilism. By inviting veteran fighters of the War of Resistance to attend, and displaying flags of hero units, the parade builds a spiritual link between past and present. Second, demonstrating achievements in military modernization to safeguard national sovereignty and regional stability. All participating equipment is domestically produced, in-service main battle hardware, with a high proportion of new systems, including hypersonic weapons and intelligent unmanned platforms—showcasing China’s capacity for independent innovation in armaments. Through the parade, China communicates to the world its firm stance on safeguarding the outcomes of the victory in WWII and opposing historical nihilism, directly responding to actions by Japan’s right wing and to Western distortions of the war’s history.
The parade design emphasizes the fusion of history and reality. The marching formations follow a “one old, one new” structure: there are inheritors of the legacy of the WWII-era Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, and the South China guerrillas, alongside formations that reflect modern military reforms and new service branches—demonstrating the results of building a “three-in-one” force structure. The colors and standards formation focuses on representative merit flags from the WWII period, which carry historical memory and record the heroic deeds of China’s military and civilians in the flames of anti-Japanese war.
The equipment formations are organized according to principles of joint, combat-realistic grouping and divided into modules such as land operations, maritime operations, air and missile defence, information operations, and unmanned warfare.
They not only display the achievements of the PLA’s modernization but, through the appearance of hypersonic weapons, intelligent unmanned systems, and other new strategic assets, underscore China’s resolve to safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests.
China’s strategic intent in displaying military strength through the parade is distinctly defensive. The main goal of China’s military modernization is to build all-domain operational capability, not to pursue global military hegemony. In the 2025 parade, participating equipment is organized into modular groupings strictly according to “combat-realistic” requirements, forming a three-dimensional ground combat system in which ground assault forces operate in coordinated formations with air-defence missile systems and electronic warfare units; naval shipborne weapon systems closely integrate with shore-based anti-ship missiles and aviation forces to create a sea-land-air integrated anti-ship strike capability; and the aerial echelons, through multi-type coordination, demonstrate the PLA’s joint air combat capability.
This force composition clearly conveys the PLA’s deep understanding of modern warfare: system-of-systems confrontation and joint operational capability are key to victory and the foundation of peace. China’s showcase of the futuristic stealth drones, unmanned warships, underwater drones, and armed quadruple robots, or robotic wolves, as well as unmanned combat vehicles, underscores its remarkable achievements in unmanned combat platforms, leveraging the country’s manufacturing and R&D prowess in the drone and robotic industry and the development of AI.
Also featured in the parade are hypersonic systems (such as the DF-61 and YJ-21), with their long-range and hard-to-intercept characteristics, are seen as game-changing strategic assets—but they are built precisely to establish deterrence against potential threats. China stresses these systems are “built for the battlefield, not for show,” intended to make potential adversaries think twice, not to start wars.
The growth of China’s military power is not at odds with its path of peaceful development. China’s defence spending has long stayed within 1.5% of GDP, below the world average (and the NATO’s 2% standard), and has grown in single digits for nine consecutive years since 2016, reflecting a prudent approach to defence. By contrast, the U.S. 2025 defence budget is $850 billion, 3.5% of GDP, and its military actions are often global interventions.
In terms of equipment displays, the parade emphasizes defensive systems. A multi-layer air and missile defence architecture—from long-range interception to terminal defence—showcases China’s robust capacity to build a national air-space security shield. The review of cyber-electromagnetic forces signals that capabilities in cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum have been formally incorporated into and publicly presented as part of national strategic power, reflecting China’s ability to address new security threats. These displays align with the official narrative of “peaceful development,” indicating that enhanced military strength is meant to better safeguard peace, not to seek expansion.
China has a solid track record backing its peace commitments. Since 1949, China has never initiated a war, seized an inch of foreign land, or waged proxy wars. Despite being surrounded by over 200 US military bases, China is the only major power to enshrine the path of peaceful development in its constitution, and the only nuclear-armed state to pledge no first use of nuclear weapons. In arms control and disarmament, China has joined more than 20 international treaties and mechanisms—including the NPT, BWC, and CWC—constructively participating in related meetings and mechanisms and promptly reporting on compliance.
On peacekeeping, since 1990 China has deployed over 50,000 personnel to nearly 30 UN missions, is the second-largest financial contributor and a major troop contributor, and ranks among the top P5 contributors of peacekeepers, with over 2,200 personnel currently serving in eight UN mission areas. China has formed an 8,000-strong peacekeeping standby force and a 300-strong permanent police unit, making it the country with the largest and most complete range of standby contingents in the UN system. These practices fully demonstrate that China’s peace commitment is earnest, not merely rhetorical.
On the Taiwan Strait, the message is explicit. While some foreign media hype the 2025 parade as linked to “cross-strait unification,” Chinese authorities consistently stress that the Taiwan question concerns internal unification and legitimate defence against external interference. The Defence Ministry has repeatedly stated that budget increases mainly strengthen naval and air force modernization to ensure stability in the Strait. In April 2025, the Eastern Theatre Command’s joint drills tested landing and blockade capabilities, yet experts in Taiwan—such as former Executive Yuan head Sean Chen—argue the mainland is unlikely to take military action before 2028, with economic factors being key.
China's military modernization aims to safeguard peace rather than provoke conflict by addressing complex security challenges, such as the U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific and issues in the South China Sea. Emphasizing defensive over offensive capabilities, China's military enhancements like the Type 055 destroyer and Type 093B submarine focus on bolstering defence rather than aggression.
This modernization is integral to China's national development agenda, offering security for economic growth and aligning with a vision of global cooperation and peaceful development. By engaging in the Global Security Initiative, China showcases its military prowess not to intimidate but to contribute to international security governance, underscoring its commitment to world peace.
