China’s Military Parade: A Funeral for World Peace

Theodosian Trap

China held a military parade that felt far more like a funeral for world peace.

Officially titled the Conference to Commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, the 2025 China Victory Day Parade took place on Chang’an Avenue in Beijing on September 3, 2025.

The parade came only days after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, where China, Russia, India, Iran, and a collection of aligned nations gathered in a visible display of shifting geopolitical gravity.

One image from the summit continues to haunt my thoughts: the wives of SCO leaders standing beside Peng Liyuan, wife of President Xi Jinping, all with their right hands raised. Peng stands at the center in white.

Are they waving hello?

Or waving goodbye?

This article is, admittedly, an overanalysis of the visual symbolism embedded in the parade and surrounding events. But parades are designed to be read symbolically.

A parade could be defined as a moving encounter intended to deliver messages from sponsors to spectators.

Military processions are not entertainment alone. They exist to stir patriotic enthusiasm, project strength, and shape public emotion through spectacle.

Tiananmen: The Stage of Power

The center stage was set at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing.

The Gate of Heavenly Peace stands between Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City — a site first built during the Ming Dynasty in 1420 and layered with centuries of imperial and political symbolism.

The gate represents imperial authority, national continuity, and the spirit of the Chinese people. It is a site of profound historical reverence.

The military procession rolled down Chang’an Avenue between the Gate and the Square.

Inside Tiananmen Square, large crowds and military personnel were arranged around towering numerals reading “1945” and “2025,” elevated above a staged Great Wall backdrop.

To me, they read like tombstones for peace.

The History Lesson Before the Parade

If you watched the full four-hour, twenty-nine-minute CGTN broadcast, the day began not with military spectacle, but with a two-hour historical lecture delivered by Chinese officials Zhou Bo and Victor Gao.

The message was unmistakable: China believes it now stands on the correct side of history.

The presenters carefully explained how China and the world arrived at this geopolitical crossroads, emphasizing that China is prepared to meet resistance “on any battlefield, in any dimension.”

Special attention was given to Chinese UN Blue Helmets and the Cairo Declaration, alongside repeated suggestions that America has lost its moral standing as a global superpower because it abandoned its values and ideals.

The officials highlighted that China contributes the largest number of UN peacekeeping forces and intentionally deploys them to unstable regions.

The implied message felt chilling:

We are already everywhere.

We can activate whenever necessary.

You won’t know where.

You won’t know when.

The broader narrative presented throughout the broadcast was that China is not “rising,” but returning to its rightful place after a temporary interruption in history.

These eighty years of Western dominance, they suggested, are merely a blip against China’s four-thousand-year dynastic legacy.

Rewriting the Beginning of World War II

One of the first ideological shifts presented was the redefinition of when World War II officially began.

According to the Chinese framing, WWII began in 1931 with Japan’s invasion of China — not in 1939 as traditionally taught in the West.

The atrocities committed during the Japanese occupation, particularly the Rape of Nanjing, were given central focus.

The message was clear:

China suffered first.

China fought longest.

China remembers.

And now China intends to define history itself.

The Red Carpet Procession

After the historical segment, coverage shifted to the arrival of foreign dignitaries.

Representatives from more than twenty-five governments entered through the western gate and walked down a long red carpet toward President Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan.

Almost all wore identical unidentified golden pins, likely distributed during the SCO summit.

The camera framing was deliberate. Each leader appeared visually diminished against the enormous red carpet, ceremonial guards, and sweeping architecture as commentators described expanding strategic partnerships and strengthened alliances.

During this section, an odd sound repeatedly cut through the silence: the cawing of crows.

Perhaps accidental.

Perhaps not.

In many traditions, hearing crows during a ceremony or festival is considered deeply inauspicious — a warning, an omen, a sign of death approaching.

Pins, Power, and Allegiance

After what felt like a “Red Walk of Shame,” the guests greeted Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan for a massive group photograph.

Xi and Peng wore no pins themselves.

Instead, they stood center stage flanked by Russia on one side and North Korea on the other.

The symbolism was difficult to ignore.

China stood at the center.

Russia and North Korea stood beside it.

The others wore the pins.

China did not.

Peng Liyuan’s taupe-colored dress blended traditional Chinese styling with the structure of a modern military coat dress — elegant, restrained, disciplined, futuristic.

I have been unable to identify the exact meaning of the gold pins, but pins universally function as symbols of belonging.

You wear them to declare affiliation.

Identity.

Membership.

The message seemed obvious:

If you wear the pin, you belong to us.

Digital Reality and Manufactured Spectacle

Throughout the broadcast, it became difficult to separate reality from digital enhancement.

Some sequences looked less like live television and more like rendered video-game cinematics.

Perhaps that was intentional.

We now live in an era of synthetic reality — a world where distinguishing between truth, theater, propaganda, and simulation becomes increasingly impossible.

Songs of Resistance and National Identity

Once dignitaries were seated, a massive youth choir dressed in pale blue shirts and white slacks began singing patriotic anthems.

Each song carried heavy symbolic weight.

• “Along the Songhua River” recalled the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

• “On the Taihang Mountains” celebrated wartime resistance.

• “Defending the Yellow River,” from the Yellow River Cantata, invoked national survival.

• “Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China” reinforced party legitimacy.

• Finally, the Chinese National Anthem played as an enormous Chinese flag rose above the square.

Every performance reinforced themes of sacrifice, resistance, unity, and national destiny.

The Great Wall and the Closing Gates

After two and a half hours of buildup, the actual parade began.

The introduction opened with triumphal music as the Great Wall of China illuminated in gold across dark mountain ridges.

The imagery was striking.

The eastern side glowed in sunlight.

The western side disappeared into darkness.

If the gates close, you cannot enter.

China’s Golden Wall confronting America’s Golden Dome.

A crimson silk ribbon, blood-red in color, floated through the sequence before intertwining with an olive branch beneath a glowing “80” insignia atop the Wall.

Peace and war wrapped together.

Tik Tok. Tik Tok. Gong.

The opening sequence centered on a massive pendulum swinging through time.

1945

Tik.

1955

Tok.

1965

Tik.

1975

Tok.

1985

Tik.

1995

Tok.

2005

Tik.

2015

Tok.

2025

Gong.

The sound after the gong was not triumphant.

It was mournful.

Somber.

Funereal.

My interpretation was immediate:

This was not simply a celebration of victory.

It was a memorial service for the eighty years of relative peace between East and West.

A recognition that the era has ended.

China’s message seemed to be:

We remember the partnership.

We appreciate the partnership.

But now comes something new.

Peace through war.

Peace Through War

Throughout the broadcast, Chinese officials repeatedly emphasized that China is fully prepared for multidimensional warfare.

Cyber warfare.

Space warfare.

AI warfare.

Economic warfare.

Conventional warfare.

The message was not subtle:

We are peaceful.

But we are prepared.

And if conflict comes, China believes it now possesses the technological superiority it once lacked during World War II.

Officials repeatedly reminded viewers that China’s past military weakness prolonged earlier conflicts. The implication now was unmistakable:

That weakness no longer exists.

White Hats and Funeral Colors

Like most large national events, commemorative items were distributed to attendees.

In 2015, colorful hats were handed out in bright reds, yellows, blues, oranges, and greens.

In 2025, the hats appeared overwhelmingly white.

As a florist, I would never design an all-white arrangement for a Chinese family without explicit permission because white is traditionally associated with mourning and funerals.

That symbolism is deeply understood culturally.

Which makes the choice feel intentional.

White is the color of death.

White is the color of mourning.

We are gathered here, perhaps, to say goodbye to the old world order.

Mirrors of America

One of the most striking elements of the parade was how visually similar the Chinese military appeared to the American military.

The camouflage patterns.

The medical insignias.

The ceremonial precision.

The technological presentation.

It felt like staring into a geopolitical mirror.

The only difference was that every face looking back was Chinese.

Unlike the American military parade held on June 14, 2025, China deliberately avoided showcasing military history prior to the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

America rooted its military identity in the Revolutionary War and its founding mythology.

China chose instead to focus entirely on the future.

The Future Battlefield

The parade also made visible what modern warfare now includes.

Cyber divisions.

Digital warfare teams.

Robotic dogs.

Drone swarms.

Autonomous aircraft.

AI-assisted systems.

Hypersonic missiles.

Nuclear capabilities.

The message was not simply military strength.

It was technological inevitability.

China was not merely displaying weapons.

It was displaying the future battlefield itself.

Xi Jinping’s Final Message

As armored columns and missile systems passed through Tiananmen, President Xi Jinping eventually emerged standing through the roof of his armored vehicle.

“Greetings, comrades,” he called.

“Greetings, Chairman,” the troops answered.

“Serve the people.”

The ceremony concluded with Xi delivering a speech framed entirely around peace.

But it was peace defined through strength, deterrence, and readiness for war.

Then came the symbolic finale:

Release the peace doves.

Release the balloons.

Smile for the cameras.

The parade was presented as a celebration of peace.

But to me, it felt like a funeral for the last eighty years of it.

The chapter has closed.

And China wanted the world to know it.