It was the best of shows, it was the worst of shows: As 12,000 troops and hundreds of tanks and missiles rolled through Tiananmen Square in front of invited guest and foreign leaders, Beijing residents were barred from watching.
Barricades were set up hundreds of meters from the parade marking 70 years since Japan’s World War II defeat, and squads of police and blue-shirted volunteers blocked access to the deserted streets.
Residents whose homes overlooked the route itself were ordered not to go onto their balconies or even open their windows.
Photo: AP
Crowds of about 100 citizens gathered at intersections to try to catch a glimpse of the hardware as it rolled by in the distance, but were disappointed.
“Of course I’m proud, I’m Chinese,” translator Zhao Yufeng said. “But I think more people would feel more involved if we could see the soldiers and tanks.”
Instead most watched the live broadcast on mobile phones, as the city took on an atmosphere of years past, with residents sitting out on the streets chatting or playing cards.
A man in his 20s surnamed Guo said he understood the need for security, but was skeptical of the authorities’ handling of the event.
“We’ve been brainwashed from such a young age to hate Japanese, we call them ghosts, so it’s easy for the leadership to justify a massive show of force today,” he said.
However, as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) began speaking, Guo cut the live broadcast and pocketed his smartphone.
“He’s not going to say anything interesting,” Guo said.
For some, the parade restrictions were an expensive imposition.
Wang Xingyu and his wife have a noodle shop close to the parade route and sleep in a room behind the kitchen. They only go home to visit their families in Shaanxi Province once a year.
They are open seven days a week, but their hard work has been interrupted by the commemorations, which saw them forced to close for two days.
“We’re losing money and no one cares about us,” Wang said, visibly flustered. “Maybe if we could open, people would come, eat and they could watch the parade on our television.”
“Instead, everyone is just standing around here with nothing to do,” he added. “And we can’t even see anything.”
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS