Mr. Xi, whose own political stature the parade was meant to buttress, spoke after a 70-gun salute echoed across Tiananmen Square. The chest-rumbling blasts opened a massive event to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender from the Second World War.
Soon after, platoons of soldiers goose-stepped down Chang’anjie – Beijing’s famed Avenue of Eternal Peace – followed by great masses of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and trucks carrying ballistic missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads to virtually anywhere on earth. Overhead, jet fighters, bombers and fuel tankers pierced the sky, followed by a flying canopy of helicopters, which China said was the largest such formation ever assembled for a military parade.
Included in the parade were unmanned aerial vehicles; the DF-26 missile, dubbed the “Guam Killer” for its Pacific-spanning range; and the DF-5B missile, a powerful intercontinental nuclear missile that can strike almost anywhere on earth. Announcers called it a “shield and defence of national sovereignty and national dignity.”