Beijing touts alternative order at WWII parade: U.S. scholars

Washington, Sept. 3 (CNA) Beijing's large-scale military parade on Wednesday was aimed at promoting an "alternative global order" to replace U.S. dominance, U.S. scholars told CNA.

Richard Bush, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan, said China sought to send the message that it "is getting stronger and stronger."

Bush said that China was trying to convey that "China is a firm pole of the emerging international system, replacing the U.S." and that "Beijing is consistent in its principles and priorities and Washington is not."

Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund's Indo-Pacific Program, added that in addition to demonstrating military prowess, Beijing wanted to advance its Global Governance Initiative as part of its push for an alternative order.

She said the parade in Tiananmen Square, held to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War, also reinforced China's wartime narrative, which highlights China and the Soviet Union's roles in defeating fascism while downplaying those of other Allies. It also sought to strengthen China's claims to Taiwan by invoking the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations, she said.

At the parade, attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) declared that victory was achieved under a national united front against Japan led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to Xinhua News Agency.

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected that claim as a "falsehood that deviated from the facts," stressing that the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations affirmed the Republic of China's (ROC, Taiwan's official name) sovereignty over Taiwan.

It added that since the People's Republic of China did not exist at the time, it neither participated in the war against Japan nor had legitimacy to claim a role in the post-war order.