By Ben Blanchard, BEIJING
China celebrated its growing power and confidence with a
big display of military hardware and goose-stepping troops in Beijing on
Tuesday, overseen by President Xi Jinping who pledged peaceful development on
Communist China’s 70th birthday.
The event is
the country’s most important of the year as it looks to project its assurance
in the face of mounting challenges, including nearly four months of
anti-government protests in Hong Kong and an economy-sapping trade war with the
United States.
Xi, dressed
in a slate gray “Mao” suit and accompanied by his predecessors Hu Jintao and
Jiang Zemin, said China would pursue a mutually beneficial strategy of opening
up.
The military
should resolutely safeguard China’s sovereignty, security, and development
interests, and firmly uphold world peace, Xi told a handpicked crowd at
Tiananmen Square, in comments carried live on state television.
“No force
can ever shake the status of China, or stop the Chinese people and nation from
marching forward,” Xi said from the Gate of Heavenly Peace, where Mao Zedong
proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China on this day in 1949.
China must
maintain lasting prosperity and stability in Hong Kong and Macao, promote the
peaceful development of relations with self-ruled Taiwan and “continue to
strive for the motherland’s complete reunification”, he added.
Xi, whose
military modernization program has rattled nerves around the region, then
inspected row upon row of military hardware and immaculately presented troops.
At one
stage, Xi, riding past troops in a black, open-roofed limousine, shouted:
“Hello comrades, hard-working comrades!”
The massed
ranks bellowed back: “Follow the Party! Fight to win! Forge exemplary conduct!”
Returning to
the stage, Xi watched as lines of tanks, drones and missiles filed past.
Among the weapons on
display were DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles, the backbone of China’s
nuclear deterrence, which can carry several nuclear warheads and reach as far
as the United States.
“They have
highly advanced capabilities and the range to reach the United States from
mainland China,” said Nozomu Yoshitomi, professor at Japan’s Nihon University
and a retired major general of Japan’s Ground Self-Defence Force.
“Also, this
is probably the first time they have shown us JL-2 submarine launched ballistic
missiles in a parade. They don’t have the range to reach the United States from
waters around China, but they demonstrate China’s second-strike capability.”
After the military parade, dancers and floats
lauding China’s history, achievements and its regions passed by, along with
portraits of China’s previous leaders and Xi himself, which got loud cheers.
The upheavals of the last seven decades — including
the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and bloody crackdown on
pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989 - did not get a
mention.
President Xi Jinping |
“I’m not that familiar with the military, but I was
stunned by them. I was covered in goosebumps,” said Shanghai student Meng
Yichen, watching at her university.
“I loved the women
troops. I’d not seen many before, so seeing so many this time was a great step
forward.”
One
highlight for many Chinese was the appearance of Hong Kong policeman Lau
Chak-kei waving a Chinese flag in the crowd. Lau is viewed as a hero in China
after he pointed a shotgun loaded with beanbag rounds at hundreds of protesters
besieging a Hong Kong police station on the night of July 30.
Lau was the
fourth most searched for topic on China’s Twitter-like Weibo service on
Tuesday.
Xi remains
broadly popular in China for his aggressive campaign against corruption and for
propelling what is now the world’s second-biggest economy to the forefront of
global politics.
But he faces
mounting challenges, notably in Hong Kong, which has been rocked by protests
demanding greater democracy.
The former British colony
was in lockdown on Tuesday with barricades in the city center, shuttered stores
and a heavy police presence. Embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam is in
Beijing for the anniversary celebrations.
Another
challenge is Chinese-claimed Taiwan, a free-wheeling democracy with little
interest in being run by Beijing and which holds presidential elections in
January.
Taiwan on
Tuesday condemned China’s “dictatorship”, saying it was a threat to peace.
There are
also restive minorities in Tibet and heavily Muslim Xinjiang, where China has
faced international opprobrium for detaining up to one million ethnic Uighurs
in what China calls a de-radicalization scheme.
Underscoring
another problem Xi faces, the parade took place under smoggy Beijing skies,
despite region-wide efforts to curb emissions ahead of the anniversary.
The capital has been
under tight security, with police telling residents of houses on the parade
route not to look out their windows.
Most of Tian Shuang’s relatives are herding
goats in the barren hills of Ningxia province, one of the poorest parts of
western China
|
On a main
road leading into central Beijing, several kilometers from Tiananmen Square,
crowds gathered craning their necks to see.
A road
sweeper urged a bystander to go home and watch on television.
“You can’t
walk to Tiananmen Square. You can’t go further than here,” he said. -
Reuters
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