On September 3, 2025, China held a lavish military parade to commemorate an 80-year anniversary celebration since the defeat of imperialistic Japan in World War II. Known for its theatrical display of power, China has apparently used the public event to signal its ascendance as the leader of an alternative world order.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un prominently at his side, China’s President Xi Jinping showcased an unmistakable dig by communist leaders aimed at US President Donald Trump and the West. Reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi German Army (Heer) before World War II, there is little doubt that the People’s Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China is not a world-class killing machine.
It seems strangely weird that these developments of today have an uncannily eerie resemblance to Hitler’s parading of Germany’s imperialistic army 90 years ago. And like Germany, China believes it has scores to settle. It was humiliated by the West militarily during the Opium Wars and politically until 1949, when the Communists took over. By the same token, Hitler’s Germany felt humiliated by the post-World War I Versailles Treaty.
With all the ongoing rhetoric about China’s debatable leadership of the world stage, still arguments can never be lost. For one, it is not so much what China has done to enhance its position but what the US-led West has blundered through the years towards accurately assessing China. And for another, the world still falsely thinks that the threat is Xi Jinping or the PLA more than it is the Chinese Communist Party.
The first argument that cannot be denied is that China would not be in the strong position it is in now if not for the United States. For all its power and omnipresence, the US has massively failed to contain China since the Second World War. The Cold War which preoccupied the Superpower with the Soviet Union neglected any worthy attention deserving of Red China.
Even as the Cold War remained hot, President Richard Nixon allied with China in 1972. While the US benefited from the alliance exploiting China’s split with the Soviet Union, China’s improved relations with America also allowed it to gradually become strong through the years that followed. The rest is history as we say. But America’s gamble with China never paid off even if the think tanks in Washington assumed it would eventually. It was doomed from the start. It was like assuming that Americans would one day convert to authoritarianism away from democracy.
America’s democratic peace theory with China was met with delight by communist party leaders and played to the hilt by astute party leads like Deng Xiaoping. The party stuck by their long-held protracted war strategy against the west. In fact, leaders like Deng cautioned and guided that China should never reveal its gaining strength but rather continue to have the West believe China is still just the sleeping dragon and benevolent giant it always was.
The leaders believed China should hide its strength and bide its time until the timing was ripe for it to emerge from the shadows. This assessed right time came in 2012. The party chose Xi Jinping as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party that year. And in the following year, Xi was elected President of the People’s Republic of China.
It can even be argued that the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of American domestic politics are playing right into the hands of China. While the Republican Party chose Donald Trump to be the messiah who would make America great again, Trump as leader is also now making one blunder after another which could end up creating more problems for America with China than they would solve.
Just the fact that the divide between the two major political parties is failing to unite the country already bodes ill for American foreign policy relative to China. For instance, are international tariffs an effective instrument of national power as played by Trump?
Any non-economist could tell us that slapping excessive tariffs on allied imports would eventually impact the American economy adversely. In hindsight and by way of comparison, the economy of China was worst off before the US’ ‘most favored nation’ trade status treatment of it because it was isolationist. No country would want to trade with the US if its tariffs are too high, especially in the age of globalization.
As one economist said, Trump is making America like China before – an isolationist nation. The tables appear to have turned. Now, it is China which is welcoming into its orbit all countries slapped by Trump with excessive tariffs. While Trump is doing this, he is also arm-twisting allies to up their defense spending twice or thrice their present budgets. Now, is the US encouraging another global war? Siphoning off all public budgets toward defense is a clear way of warmongering or beating the war drum.
If modern-day war remained conventional, then what General Douglas MacArthur once said still makes sense: “There is no substitute for victory”. But, if it has turned nuclear, then I’d say there is no substitute for peace.
Finally, we would be off-track if we still believe that the real threat is Xi Jinping or the PLA more than it is the CCP. This is not to say that the PLA is not a threat, because it certainly is. But the threat posed by China will not go away because of Xi or the army. A Chinese threat exists for the world not because of anything else but the communist party. The communist party is China. Communism as an ideology will continue to exist in the world so long as China exists.
China, since 1949, was not driven by either a rag-tag army or world-class army. The army is the party. The PLA is merely a modern-day formulation according to worldly structure. Thus, like World War II Germany’s Nazi Party, China’s Communist Party sees as Hitler once saw the global empire it dreamed to lead.
The threat will not go away simply because a battle or war will have been lost. It will only cease once the party no longer exists. There is another factor that is greatly encouraging the CCP – modern-day technology. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and unmanned drones make up for the PLA’s lack of battlefield experience.
The availability of economic resources, low personnel involvement (or low regard for human life in a command state), and sunk costs are assessed by party leaders to more than make up for the PLA’s needed learning curve in the battlefield.
However, it must also be recalled that Japan’s WWII defeat in China (culminating on September 2, 1945) came at the hands not only of communist forces under Mao Tse-tung but nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek as well. Short of being annihilated by the communists in 1949, the nationalists eventually retreated to the island of Formosa (presently called Taiwan). The Kuomintang government’s decadent governance, corruption, and long hostility towards the predominantly peasant population drove the people to the communists. The communists’ ability to seize Japanese weapons in Manchuria, successful guerrilla warfare, and effective propaganda tactics eventually won over the KMT’s incompetence due to corruption, poor morale, and ineffective leadership.
By finishing off Taiwan with or without a fight, China hopes to bring to conclusion its unfinished past. Today, China rises above a still relatively peaceful but predominantly secular world order. But this global peace came about as the result of a moral order paid for by 85 million lives in World War II. Ultimately, it may be the overall lack of a moral ingredient in a new world order without it that is more than likely to plunge the world once again into chaos.