China’s insular military will invite foreign armed forces to take part in a lavish parade in Beijing this autumn marking the 70th anniversary of victory over Japan in the second world war.

A defence ministry spokesman, Geng Yansheng, said foreign government and military leaders would be invited as observers and members of their armed forces would be welcome to march in the parade.

The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, had been invited, the South China Morning Post reported. However, he was reluctant to accept, according to government sources in Tokyo, as it would signal Japan’s submission to its former enemy.

Geng’s comments were the ministry’s first official remarks on the long-anticipated event. He said the parade was not to celebrate the victory but to commemorate victims of the conflict, which China refers to as “the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression”.

“Through the military parade, China hopes to demonstrate our firm stance, join hands with the rest of the world, safeguard the victorious outcome of the second world war, maintain world peace and stability, and create a better future for mankind,” Geng said at a monthly news conference.

He said the parade would take place on or around the 2 September anniversary of Japan’s formal surrender. Invitations would go out to countries that fought in the conflict as well as to some with no direct connection, Geng said, without mentioning individual nations by name.

The participation of foreign armed forces is almost unprecedented for such events, which in the past have taken place once a decade to mark the founding of the People’s Republic on 1 October 1949. China invited 21 vessels from 14 countries to take part in a ceremonial naval display on National Day in 2009.

The parades feature aerial displays and China’s latest weaponry rolling down Beijing’s main boulevard, passing by Tiananmen Square, where the People’s Liberation Army violently crushed student-led pro-democracy protests in 1989.

Despite China’s enthusiasm for the event, numerous questions surround the issue of foreign participation. The parade plans have drawn speculation that Beijing wants to emphasise what it sees as a lack of Japanese contrition for its wartime aggression, and its warnings that Tokyo continues to threaten the region – in part to distract from Beijing’s own growing assertion of territorial claims in the region.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency cited an anonymous government source as saying Abe was reluctant to attend the ceremony because it included a military parade. The Yomiuri newspaper also reported that Abe was unlikely to attend, citing Tokyo’s unease at what it sees as Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the region, including its regular increases in military spending.

Geng declined to comment on whether formal invitations would be issued to Japan, as Abe is loathed in China for his hawkish views, or to Taiwan, regarded by China’s ruling Communist party as a renegade province since it drove Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists – who had battled Japan for eight years on the mainland – to the island in 1949.