Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Chinese President Xi Jinping’s message for the world, the United States targeting suspected Venezuela-tied drug smugglers, and an Israeli attack near United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon.
‘Peace or War’
Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded a week’s worth of strength posturing with Beijing’s largest-ever “Victory Day” military parade on Wednesday. More than 50,000 spectators and several high-profile leaders attended the much-anticipated event, which saw fighter jets thunder overhead, tanks roll through Tiananmen Square, and thousands of Chinese soldiers march in lockstep.
Officially, the parade marked 80 years since Japan’s defeat at the end of World War II. But Xi used the celebration to send a thinly veiled message to the West: China is seeking to challenge the U.S.-led international order and bolster Beijing’s (and its allies’) influence on the world stage.
“Today, mankind is faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum,” Xi told the crowd. “The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is unstoppable.”
Wednesday’s parade offered an opportunity for Xi to flaunt China’s military prowess, including its latest top-of-the-line tech development. Hypersonic missiles, laser weapons, underwater drones, and weaponized “robot wolves” were all on display. “It is no longer enough to say that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is catching up or that it is copying foreign military equipment designs,” Sam Roggeveen, the director of the International Security Program at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, wrote in Foreign Policy. “China is now innovating, and it is leading. In the process, the regional military balance that has for decades favored the United States and its partners is being irrevocably changed.”
That message was further emphasized by the dignitaries who attended Beijing’s parade. In a rare show of autocratic force, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un flanked Xi. This was the first time that the trio had ever appeared together in public.
Other notable guests included Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who is facing mass anti-government protests at home; Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose regional rival Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with Xi in the days before; Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has recently engaged with Beijing in nuclear talks; and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, the only Western leaders to attend the event.
The White House was quick to denounce Xi’s martial photo-op with Putin and Kim. “May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration. Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America,” U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after the parade’s start. The Kremlin denied that Putin was conspiring against Washington, instead suggesting that Trump’s remarks were ironic.
However, after China used this week’s two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit to champion the emergence of a new Beijing-shaped multipolar world, experts say the parade sends a more bellicose message. “Unlike Xi’s vision for a happy world of win-win cooperation, the military parade suggests the possibility that someone might well lose and that it won’t be China,” Sergey Radchenko argued in Foreign Policy.
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What We’re Following
Trump’s war on drugs. A U.S. military strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea killed at least 11 people on Tuesday. Trump accused the suspected “narcoterrorists” of working with a criminal gang under the direction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Tuesday’s strike signals a drastic escalation in the White House’s campaign against drug trafficking. Upon taking office in January, Trump signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which legal experts argued at the time could be used as justification for future U.S. military action.
The strike also worsens a longtime U.S. feud with Maduro, whom the United States views as an illegitimate leader due to allegations of voting fraud and government crackdowns on dissidents during the country’s presidential election last July.
Ahead of Tuesday’s attack, Maduro condemned the United States’ heightened military presence in the Caribbean, calling the deployment of eight U.S. warships an “extravagant, unjustified, immoral, and absolutely criminal” threat against Caracas.
Attack near peacekeepers. The Israeli military on Tuesday dropped four grenades close to where United Nations peacekeepers were stationed in southern Lebanon, according to the U.N. peacekeeping force. No one was hurt in the attack, but the U.N. mission (known as UNIFIL) criticized the assault as “one of the most serious attacks on UNIFIL personnel and assets” since the Israel-Hezbollah conflict ended last November.
On Wednesday, Israel acknowledged the attack but said it did not intentionally target the U.N. force, instead saying that it dropped several sonic bombs near a suspect in the area. Israeli forces have fired on positions used by U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon in the past.
The incident came less than a week after the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to terminate UNIFIL’s mission at the end of next year. The multinational peacekeeping force was first stationed in southern Lebanon in 1978 following Israel’s invasion of the country, but pressure from the United States, Israel’s closest ally, forced the council to end the mission’s nearly five-decade run.
Replacing Thailand’s PM. The leader of Thailand’s conservative Bhumjaithai Party claimed on Wednesday to have secured enough votes to be made prime minister. Anutin Charnvirakul seeks to fill the vacuum left by former Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, whom the country’s Constitutional Court removed from power last month after ruling that she had violated Bangkok’s ethical code by taking a deferential tone during a phone call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.
Until now, Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai Party had managed to maintain control of the government despite hemorrhaging support in June, when Bhumjaithai left the ruling coalition. But Paetongtarn’s removal has injected new uncertainty into Bangkok, with lawmakers questioning whether they can vote in a new prime minister or must fully dissolve the parliament and call for snap elections.
On Wednesday, though, Thailand’s parliament appeared to shift out of this political gridlock. The progressive opposition People’s Party agreed to back Anutin in exchange for a promise to dissolve the parliament within four months and change the Thai Constitution to make it more democratic. Anutin has accepted these conditions.
Odds and Ends
Until now, the Guinness World Record for longest nonstop reading aloud marathon was 365 hours and 39 seconds, achieved by a group of five in the Dominican Republic. A different group of five in Nigeria, though, may have beaten that. On Saturday, three men and two women in Lagos clocked in more than 431 hours (or 18 days’ worth) of reading, finishing 79 books written by Nigerians. The event aimed to promote literacy in the country, where only 63 percent of Nigerians ages 15 and up in 2021 were considered literate. FP’s World Brief writer hopes that the event included a reading of her favorite novel by a Nigerian author, Things Fall Apart.
The post China’s Military Parade Sends a Pointed Message to the West appeared first on Foreign Policy.
