Today’s vast military parade in Beijing is the climax of three days of political theatre orchestrated by President Xi Jinping, with supporting roles played by those pantomime villains Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. The smirking North Korean and Russian dictators joined Xi to witness the People Liberation Army’s goose-stepping soldiers and shiny weaponry rumbling through Tiananmen Square. ‘Today, humanity is again faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum,’ Xi told the crowd of some 50,000 carefully selected spectators (which roughly matched the number of soldiers). He said the Chinese people ‘firmly stand on the right side of history’.

He warned that China was ‘unstoppable’ and is ‘never intimidated by bullies’ before climbing on the back of a

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