On September 3, Beijing will wheel missiles and drones through Tiananmen Square under the banner of “Victory Day.” Officially it marks Japan’s WWII surrender. In truth, it is a spectacle of insecurity.
A Choreography of Fear
Hypersonic missiles. Drone swarms. Laser weapons. Tanks and carrier-based fighters. State media brags that everything is “domestically produced” and “combat active.” That’s not pride, it’s propaganda.
The audience is not the veterans of 1945. It’s threefold:
- The Chinese public, to be reminded who holds the trigger.
- Neighbors and rivals, to be warned into silence.
- Washington, to be told China wants to be seen as equal.
But parades don’t project confidence. They scream fragility. A government certain of its legitimacy does not need to shove weapons down its people’s throats.
A Familiar Script
The Soviet Union had nukes, tanks, and the world’s biggest standing army. It collapsed without a shot fired in 1991 because it lacked legitimacy in the eyes of its own people.
The Nazi regime was armed to the teeth. Its “Thousand-Year Reich” lasted barely 12 years.
Even Rome, which ruled much of the known world with legions, crumbled once its citizens lost faith in its institutions.
By tying the parade to the anniversary of Japan’s surrender, Beijing wants to drape modern militarism in the cloth of historical victory. But that anniversary belongs to a collective struggle against fascism, not to a single party’s chest-beating.
Weaponry has never secured legitimacy. Empires with arsenals mightier than Beijing’s (Rome, the Ottomans, even the Soviets) discovered that intimidation is a fragile throne. What lasts is trust, stability, and a people who believe in their rulers.
The Real Meaning
By hijacking WWII’s anniversary, Beijing dresses militarism in stolen glory. The lesson of that war was that militarism destroys nations. The Party twists it into an excuse to arm itself further.
Tiananmen Square will not show strength. It will show fear – fear of its people, fear of dissent, fear that its rule rests on rifles instead of respect.
On September 3, the world will see China’s latest weapons. But the real headline is this: a regime that parades missiles in its capital is telling you, without words, that it is terrified of ideas.
