Four months after opening military parade at the Red Square to mark the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory over Nazi Germany Russia’s President Vladimir Putin came to China to celebrate the end of the Second World War for the second time this year – this time at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as the People’s Republic of China this week was commemorating its own victory over Japan’s Fascists.
As the Soviet Army played a key role in liberating China from invading imperial Japan, the organizers of the celebrations in Beijing called Vladimir Putin the most honored guest at the grand military parade to show that the country will never be bullied by foreign powers again.
China’s 15th military parade since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, which was described by leading Chinese media as “a moment of honor after months of practice”, was meant to send China’s Asian neighbors and the world a clear signal: the country which has lost more than 35 million in the bloody war against invading Japan during the War of Resistance from 1937 to 1945 is no more weak and, if attacked, is ready to repulse any aggression.
To prove this point, People’s Liberation Army made an all-out effort to ensure that the parade was a huge success: more than 12, 000 military personnel marched through Tiananmen Square. PLA commanders highlighted a large number of new weapons to display Chinese Army achievements in modernization drive: nearly ninety percent of the weapons were on display for the first time.
While President Obama and other Western leaders have chosen to ignore Chinese celebrations, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin joined high-ranking delegations from more than 30 countries.
Apart from taking part in celebrations President Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a new round of eye-to-eye talks which were followed by the negotiations of two government delegations and signing of a raft of more than 30 agreements.
Despite reported decline in bilateral trade in the first six months of the year due to the period of economic turbulence in both Russia and China, both sides showed an upbeat mood. In his interview to ITAR-TASS and Xinhua agencies released this week President Putin said that “Russian-Chinese ties have reached probably their highest level in history and continue to develop”.
Gleb Ivashentsov, Member of the Russian Council for International Relations and Russia’s Former Ambassador to South Korea and Myanmar (studio guest); Vladimir Sotnikov, Director of the East-West Strategic Studies Center (studio guest) and Sergei Tsiplakov, Sbernank representative in China shared their views.
