The spectacular military parade in Beijing on Thursday was ostensibly
about Beijing’s commemoration of the Second World War and the
successful resistance against Japan’s imperial occupation of China
during 1937-45. That China organised such a military parade for the
first time, however, suggests that this very special event was as much
about the past as it was about the present and the future.
China’s neighbours did not need the parade to get a sense of China’s
very impressive military modernisation. Three decades of double digit
economic growth has made China the second largest spender on defence
after the United States.
Many of them — especially India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan —
have felt the heat from China’s new military capabilities in recent
years, from the long and disputed Himalayan frontier to the contested
waters of the East and South China Seas.
Thursday’s military parade was about Beijing’s political will to
build a new order in Asia centred on China. Building a Sino-centric
order in Asia will not happen overnight; nor can it emerge without
Beijing overcoming significant political resistance.
China, however, is unapologetic about its great power aspirations,
and is unlikely to back away. Growing military capabilities have
emboldened it to challenge America’s forward military presence in the
Pacific and test the political resilience of its Asian alliances.
India’s instinctive response to the unfolding tension between America
and China is to reach for the comforting blanket of non-alignment. But
the fact that China is a neighbour with which it has many outstanding
disputes makes traditional non-alignment nearly impossible.
While the rise of a great power at its doorstep is a new strategic
experience for India, it has had problems in the past dealing with the
conflict among Asian powers. As China and Japan become rivals again in
Asia, the military parade in Beijing connects the past, present and
future in very interesting ways.
In most societies, the past is never really past. It is continually
put to political use by governments in pursuit of a current political
objective. China is no exception. President Xi Jinping’s decision to
celebrate the anniversary of the war against Japan in an ostentatious
manner was indeed politically driven.
Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic, used to dismiss
Japanese expression of contrition for its aggression against China. Mao
had the extraordinary self-confidence to proclaim that Japan’s
occupation actually helped the Chinese Communist Party to prevail over
the nationalists and gain power.
Unsurprisingly, Mao’s successors, thrice removed, do not have the
kind of political standing to take a relaxed view of Japan. Mobilising
nationalism, through controlled stimulation of anti-Japanese sentiment,
has become very much a part of the new political narrative in China.
But as it pushes Japan to the wall, China might have triggered
Tokyo’s political reorientation that could have huge political
consequences for Asia. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is determined to make
Japan a normal country and seek its rightful place in Asia. His refusal
to accept China’s dominance over Asia may have set the stage for a
prolonged Sino-Japanese rivalry within Asia.
The Indian national movement had to deal with the conflict between
China and Japan in the 1930s and 1940s at the very height of the romance
about Asian unity. But it did not do too well.
The
Congress
refused to support the British war effort against Japan despite fervent
appeals from China’s nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek; Subhas Chandra
Bose aligned with Japan to oust the British from India. And the
communists were the only ones who supported the Raj after Germany
attacked Russia in June 1941.
Despite the confusion within the national movement, India’s resources
were critical in defeating Japan. Nearly 750,000 Indian troops
participated in the gigantic effort to liberate South East Asia from
Japanese occupation.
The big gap between India’s extraordinary contribution to the Second
World War, and the collective political amnesia in New Delhi about it,
underlines the difficulties New Delhi will have in dealing with renewed
Sino-Japanese rivalry.
India’s ambivalence was apparent in its low key appearance at China’s
military parade. The NDA government had sent President Pranab Mukherjee
to the Russian commemoration of the Second World War in Moscow in May. A
small contingent of Indian troops had joined the military parade in the
Red Square.
In Beijing, India’s presence was marked by the Minister of State for
Exernal Affairs, V K Singh. And despite India’s pivotal role in
defeating Japan, there were no Indian troops marching in the heart of
Beijing.
It is not difficult to understand why. New Delhi knew Beijing’s
commemoration was about a political effort to isolate Japan. India had
no reason to endorse that. At the same time, New Delhi could not turn
down Beijing’s invitation.
New Delhi’s neat compromise reflects India’s genuine desire to have good
relations with both China and Japan. But it will soon find that being
nice to all is not an adequate strategy to cope with the historic power
shift unfolding in Asia.
DRAGON’S MIGHT
The Chinese military’s first major parade since 2009 put on show 27
phalanxes of its main battle tank, nearly 200 aircraft, indigenous
conventional and nuclear missile systems, and 12,000 troops. For the
first time, PLA organised its armaments based on their combat roles. 84%
of the 500 pieces of 40 types of equipment were displayed for the first
time, Xinhua said.
ZTZ-99A
China’s most sophisticated MBT, the “King of Land Battle”, is hailed as its first information-based tank
Missiles
* Red Arrow-10 anti-tank missiles
* HQ-12 anti-aircraft missiles
* 7 types of conventional and nuclear missiles, including
Dongfeng-15B/16/21D “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missiles;
Changjian-10A cruise missiles, Dongfeng-26 ballistic missiles,
Dongfeng-31A solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, Dongfeng-5B
intercontinental strategic missiles
Aircraft
* 200 aircraft of 18 types. Among them were KJ-500 and KJ-2000 airborne
early warning aircraft; Y8 command and communications aircraft; J-10,
J-11, J-15, and JH-7A fighters; H-6K medium-long range bombers. J-15
“Flying Shark” is China’s first generation multi-purpose carrier-borne
fighter
Reduction in troops
PLA will have 300,000 fewer troops, President Xi announced.
