China’s show of strength
Jets screamed across the sky and columns of missiles and armored vehicles rolled past Tiananmen Square yesterday during the huge military parade in Beijing, providing a rare look at China’s new weapons.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, presided over the display of firepower, flanked by Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea, among other leaders. The parade was not just a commemoration of Japan’s defeat in World War II but, even more so, a message for the West about China’s rise.
On display were hypersonic missiles to sink ships and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that could strike the continental U.S. New armored ground vehicles, which can be dropped from transport planes, and long-range rocket launchers magnified Beijing’s threat to Taiwan. And the array of unmanned aircraft and undersea vehicles showed China’s push toward drone warfare.
Hot mic: As Xi and Putin walked to the viewing platform, they made small talk about organ transplants and other things that could extend their lives — and reigns. “It could be that in this century humans might be able to live to 150,” Xi said. The remarks were captured by a microphone and broadcast live on Chinese state television.
‘Limo diplomacy’: Putin has recently appeared to prefer the inside of a limousine as a setting for one-on-one talks. He met Kim and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India in his bulletproof Russian limo during his visit to China this week, and he met with President Trump in Alaska last month in Trump’s armored car, known as the Beast.
Family visit: Kim brought a special guest to Beijing: his daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who is believed to be 12 years old. South Korean analysts believe he is grooming her as his heir.
Trump’s reaction: Within minutes of the start of the ceremony, Trump accused Xi of ignoring America’s role in helping China during the war and accused Xi, Putin and Kim of conspiring against the U.S.
Act of defiance
China has spent decades stamping out dissent, censoring the corners of the web where it lives and punishing the people who utter it. But last week, an activist in a city of 30 million people showed how hard it can be to silence all the haters. He didn’t just stage a protest; he also turned the tools of surveillance on the state. It was proof that defiance still existed, even in one of the world’s most surveilled places.
At 10 p.m. on Friday, a large projection on a building in Chongqing lit up the night with slogans calling for the end of Communist Party rule. “Only without the Communist Party can there be a new China,” read one. Another declared: “No more lies, we want the truth. No more slavery, we want freedom.”
The projection came from a nearby hotel. But when the police arrived 50 minutes later to shut it down, the activist was gone, and he’d left cameras behind. He soon released footage of officers fiddling with the projector. A handwritten letter addressed to the police was on the coffee table. “Even if you are a beneficiary of the system today, one day you will inevitably become a victim on this land,” said the letter, which the activist also circulated online.
The next day, the man who staged the protest, Qi Hong, published another image from surveillance footage showing police officers questioning his frail, hunched mother in front of her village home.
The act was both a protest and a performance, documented in real time. The visuals, when seen together, seemed to mock the Communist Party security apparatus, which had poured enormous resources into ensuring stability ahead of a military parade today.
By the time the police arrived, Qi had already left China nine days earlier with his wife and daughters. He had turned on the projection and recorded the police’s response remotely from Britain.
Technology has strengthened the Chinese government’s ability to control its people. Qi illustrated how the same tools can enable resistance. “My only intention was to express myself,” he told me in his first media interview. “The party installs surveillance cameras to watch us. I thought I could use the same method to watch them.”
Read about how Chinese people online viewed Qi’s act of defiance.
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Art or propaganda?
When politics shift, culture can change overnight. No one lived that more publicly than Jacques-Louis David, the most important painter of the late 18th century. When the French Revolution came, he stepped out of his studio and into the parliament. And when his fellow Jacobins started purging the academies, he turned his paintbrush into a blade. He even voted to send Louis XVI to the guillotine.
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That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. — Justin
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