“Unstoppable”: Xi Flaunts Nuclear Triad Marks a Historic Turning Point
Xi Jinping unveils China’s full nuclear triad for the first time during a massive Tiananmen Square parade alongside Putin and Kim Jong Un, signaling deepening ties among U.S.-sanctioned powers and challenging Western dominance.
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The impressive Chinese military parade can be seen as a historic moment for several reasons. First, it positions China ahead of Russia in a way that even Moscow appears to acknowledge for the first time. This year’s commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II was not centered on a parade in Red Square, as had so often been the case in the past, but in Beijing. Unlike Russia, now more isolated than ever since its war in Ukraine, China projected itself as the true stage for global remembrance.
The symbolism was powerful. Russia, which had paid the heaviest blood price to stop Nazi Germany, now stood in Beijing rather than hosting the world. China too had endured enormous suffering at the hands of Japanese aggression, and it chose to remind the world of this legacy while showcasing its military might.
At the center stood Xi Jinping, flanked on one side by Kim Jong Un, a leader seen by many as dangerously unpredictable with his ambitions reaching across the Pacific, and on the other side Vladimir Putin, projecting power deep into Europe.
The tableau was chilling, especially when set against the backdrop of America’s traditional allies, which appear increasingly fragile from within. France and Britain, once proud empires, are struggling to project coherent patriotism or credible nuclear strength, leaving them diminished on the world stage.
What China displayed was not diversity, but systemic homogeneity.
It was authoritarian, yes, but undeniably powerful. The West, for all its freedom, seems unable to project the same sense of collective national strength.
Citizens of the East, who live under rigid authority, might even envy Western liberties, but in terms of projecting state power, it is the East that now appears ascendant.
Xi’s hosting of the 80th anniversary parade may come to be seen as a turning point in the long conflict between East and West, a struggle that in many ways has been unfolding since the Bolshevik Revolution.
Without the British Empire, without the French Empire, and with Western decline deepening, it is difficult to say where events will lead.
But this moment has underscored a shift that may define the balance of power for decades to come.
And without a single shot fired.
