On Thursday, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used the 70th anniversary of the War of Resistance Against Japan to hold an enormous military parade on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It is certainly worth commemorating victory over Japan because history must never be forgotten. However, using a large-scale military parade to commemorate the end of the war is both extremely absurd and shameless.
My opposition is firstly centered around the historical basis of the ceremony: The CCP cannot claim credit for the victory over Japan 70 years ago. It is not just that the CCP did not lead China to victory over the Japanese, instead, the party employed many tactics to maintain — and then expand — its power, while making use of a national disaster for its own political gain. The CCP therefore has no right to pose as the leaders of the victory against Japan. Seeking to elevate the party’s status by holding a military parade is nothing short of an abuse against history.
The ceremony is also objectionable because the CCP has, during its more than 60 years in power, used the military as the basis for state-sponsored violence to maintain their grip on power. A large-scale national military parade embodies not just a fascist aesthetic, it is also a display of the CCP’s infatuation with military force as a means to rule the country.
There is no doubt that the image of tanks and armored vehicles advancing along Changan Street caused many compatriots — as well as people all over the world — to recollect the events that took place 26 years ago, when the very same military, with the same tanks and the same state-sponsored violence, bloodily suppressed a student movement at the same location.
To this day, the CCP has failed to reflect upon the June 4 massacre. Instead, it chooses to hold military parades in a show of military strength. Not only is this offensive toward those that died during the June 4 massacre, but it is a brazen attack on universal values that are held the world over.
Finally, the parade satisfied the vainglorious desires of China’s rulers, but the price for this is that it will also provide further lubrication to the wheels of the CCP’s large-scale autocratic machine, which will only serve to supply Beijing with a further excuse to cruelly suppress human rights and attack those in China who hold different political views. At the same time, to guarantee the smooth running of the parade, residents of the capital were surely forced to endure every kind of restriction and obstruction to their daily lives.
Ever since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) came to power, China’s burgeoning civil society has been subjected to a daily ratcheting-up of suppression. From the arrests of prominent human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (浦志強) and journalist Gao Yu (高瑜), to the recent mass seizure of human rights lawyers, the human rights situation in China has been thrown into reverse as the methods employed by Xi’s administration are becoming increasingly characteristic of fascism.
It is therefore ironic that China — a country that clearly is walking along the path to becoming a fascist regime — is holding a military parade to celebrate the defeat of another fascist regime.
While the Chinese economy continues to slide and a bungled handling of the recent stock market crisis has caused many ordinary people to suffer disastrous losses — and while a truthful explanation has yet to be provided for what actually took place at the chemical explosion in Tianjin — for the Chinese government to squander precious resources on a military parade is totally inappropriate.
A military parade is undoubtedly a display of national strength. However, if ordinary Chinese must pay a price in exchange for this strength, then this is something that arouses our strongest discontent and vehement opposition.
I must reiterate that the reason I am opposed to the military parade is not that I believe victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan should not be celebrated. Those heroic compatriots who paid the ultimate price in laying down their lives for their country during those eight years of extreme hardship and suffering are held in the highest esteem by all Chinese. The same respect should also be shown to those many Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) veterans who now reside in Taiwan.
No, my opposition to the military parade is because I believe that rather than it being a commemoration of the War of Resistance Against Japan, instead the parade was held to satisfy the political needs of the CCP — and even more so the vainglorious pretensions of its highest leader. Furthermore, the country and its people must pay a heavy price in terms of history, morality, economics, human rights — and even their livelihoods — so that the CCP might derive political gain from the event. There is nothing honorable about the parade: It is a disgrace. It is not a commemoration, but an attack on history and reality.
As a Chinese person, I feel extremely proud of the Chinese people’s important victory over Japan during the War of Resistance Against Japan. However, this glory belongs to all Chinese; it is not the property of the CCP. This glorious moment in history should be built upon by constructing a prosperous, strong, democratic and civilized society, and not through the display of military force. If there really must be a huge celebration, then this should come spontaneously from the people.
There is no need for the ceremony to be led by the CCP leadership, standing on the balcony of the Gate of Heavenly Peace while attempting to hoodwink the world by saying: “The War of Resistance Against Japan was won by us, the leaders of the CCP.”
Exiled Chinese dissident Wang Dan is a former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Translated by Edward Jones
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