China Headlines: China holds epic V-Day parade (2)

PARADE FOR UNITY

Excitement and thrill filled Tian'anmen Square as the PLA guards of honor and 10 foot formations - each named after a morale-boosting battle fought by Communist-led troops or Chinese war heroes and model combatants - marched by in impeccable synchrony and coordination.

Soldiers, drilled to perfection for months, barely blinked as they goosestepped past the Tian'anmen Rostrum in 128 carefully measured paces, each precisely 75 cm.

But the highlight for many of the 40,000 audience present and hundreds of millions more who watched the parade on television or via Internet was the first-ever participation of foreign troops in a Chinese military parade in Beijing.

Nearly 1,000 foreign troops from 17 countries marched at the heels of their PLA counterparts, drawing cheers and applause.

It was the first time that foreign troops had been invited to a Chinese military parade at the Tian'anmen Square.

Sara Imas in Shanghai was watching the live-show of military parade. The 65-year-old Jewish woman was born in Shanghai. Her parents came to the Chinese city in 1939. They were among 30,000 refugees who migrated from Europe during the war.

"Chinese put themselves in our position and offered help to us in the most difficult times," Imas told Xinhua. "So I am proud of the military parade."

Chinese people's empathy with Jewish refugees stemmed mostly from their own pains inflicted by the Japanese aggression.

China was the first country to face the onslaught of the Axis Powers in 1937, two years before Britain and France, and four years before the United States, Rana Mitter wrote in her 2013 book "Forgotten Ally."

But China's anti-fascist war began even earlier actually. On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese army invaded northeastern China, marking the starting point of the Chinese people's courageous fight against fascism.

In the 14 years that followed, countries including the former Soviet Union and the United States among others, all came to China's aid in its struggle for national freedom.

A female medical soldiers' formation was named after Canadian surgeon Norman Bethune to honor his contribution to Chinese people's fight against Japanese aggressors.

Jay Vinyard, an allied pilot who flew supplies to Chinese forces over the Hump Route during WWII, said China's war commemorations were a rare chance for wartime pilots to meet again.

China and the United States should join hands to achieve peace and stability in the world, he said.

"All eyes are on the parade in Beijing," 22-year-old four-time Red Square parader Anton Mikhailov told Xinhua prior to the parade.

"Our parade on Red Square in Moscow and this parade in Beijing are both for the same things: to show that we remember our losses and our victory; to demonstrate our nations' strength; and to tell the world that the two allies that had fought shoulder to shoulder will join hands for a better future," he said.

A PARADE FOR FUTURE

The ground armament formations of the 70-minute parade include modules for ground combat, air defense and missile defense, maritime attacks, strategic strikes, communication support, and logistics and armament support.

This was the first time that the PLA arranged its armament based on their actual combat roles in a parade, said Peng Guangqian, deputy secretary-general of the Council for National Security Policy Studies.

"This indicates a change of the PLA training strategy, with more focus on actual combat," Peng said.

The parade included a host of China's home-made conventional and nuclear weaponry, which bespoke the PLA's long march from an army mainly composed of infantry to informationized military. Eighty-four percent of the 500 pieces of armament rolled out on Thursday had never been shown to the public before.

On display were China's Dongfeng-5B intercontinental strategic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads, and the Dongfeng-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles described by some media as the "carrier killer."

Other cutting edge weaponry included the PLA's state-of-the-art tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles, and its new generation of airborne early warning and control aircraft, carrier-based fighters and attack helicopters which streaked low across the skies.

Among the armaments that were paraded in public for the first time were China's HJ-10 anti-tank missiles, HQ-12 anti-aircraft missiles and the third-generation carrier-based medium-long range air defense missiles.

Also in spotlight are China's shore-based anti-ship missiles which are capable of destroying large targets.

Experts believe that the high-profile weaponry display reflects the latest modernization of the Chinese armed forces, which was a result of the country's economic and technological progress.

The gleaming hardware rolling through posed a sharp contrast to China's poor weaponry in the wartime seven decades ago.

"In the fierce battle, the Japanese had rifles, tanks and fighter planes," veteran Hu Lidong said. "Our men were mowed down."

The parade was also inherently in line with the defensive strategy of the world's second largest economy.

A signatory of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, China has repeatedly vowed to adhere to the policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons and the policy that it will, unconditionally, not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states and nuclear-weapon-free zones.

China is the only nuclear-weapon country that has publicly made the pledge.

"It's just like when you have a knife, you can use it either for offense or defense," said Chen Zhou, director of the National Defense Policy Research Center of the Academy of Military Sciences of China's People's Liberation Army. "It is your strategy behind that really matters."

China's latest white paper on military strategy issued this year underscored its principles of "defense, self-defense and post-emptive strikes."

The high-profile V-Day parade concluded at about 11:40 a.m., with some 70,000 white doves and 70,000 balloons released into the sky over Tian'anmen Square to make a symbol of peace.

Seventy years after the victory of the war, there are still few people ignoring historical facts, denying and even beautifying the invading history, which is sheer contempt of history, damage to international order and provocation to peace, an editorial published on Thursday's People's Daily said.

The parade will send a signal to the world to remember history and cherish peace, it stressed.

"I was not aware of how technologically advanced the Chinese army is (before I came here)," said Serbian formation leader Marko Marjanovic, adding that parades are a perfect way to commemorate countries' warring past.

"Serbian people cherish the tradition of (commemorating the end of) WWII. Our country, which was Yugoslavia at the time, was conquered by foreign occupying force and we also fought for freedom in the same way (as the Chinese)," Marjanovic said.

"We see the similarities in there... We see that our and the Chinese contribution was positive in WWII, and we want to maintain that tradition further on," he said. Endit