Most experts agree domestic audience is main target of celebrations, as President Xi Jinping seeks to solidify growing idea of Chinese national identity

Twelve thousand troops will march through Tiananmen Square next month as part of a spectacular military parade that Beijing says is to commemorate the end of the second world war but which experts believe is far more about showcasing a president widely seen as China’s most powerful since Mao.

The Chinese capital will go into virtual lockdown on 3 September for Victory Day commemorations timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in 1945.

The parade – the first since Xi Jinping came to power in late 2012 – is intended to show off “the advanced level of the Chinese army” and to remember those who fought and died in the war, Major General Qu Rui told a press conference on Friday.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chinese tourists visit Tiananmen Square, which is being decorated for the upcoming military parade on 3 September. Photograph: UPI/Landov/Barcroft Media

About 27 military formations will process through the square, said Qu, the deputy director of the People’s Liberation Army parade-leading team. More than 100 aircraft will perform flypasts in the skies over the Forbidden City and the Great Hall of the People. Li Guangbin, a senior PLA commander, said the parade would demonstrate Chinese “shock and awe”.

Among those expected to join Xi in the stands is the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, with whom China’s leader enjoys warm ties.

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Beijing has held colossal military parades before – most recently in 2009 to mark 60 years since the communist takeover – but never to mark the end of the second world war.

China’s observers say Xi’s decision to put on such a massive show has several intentions. Partly it is an attempt to pile political pressure on regional rival Japan – with whom Beijing is embroiled in a festering territorial dispute in the East China Sea – by reminding the world of the horrific crimes its troops committed during the war years. Partly it is intended to use the country’s increasingly sophisticated military capabilities to flex China’s muscles on the world stage.

But most experts agree that Xi’s key target audience is the Chinese public. “It seems to me that the whole thing is really for internal consumption and is really part and parcel of this ramping up of the nationalist rhetoric in the story that Xi and co are pushing,” said Nick Bisley, the executive director of La Trobe Asia. “You are not doing this to impress the Pentagon.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers take a break from building a floral replica of the Great Wall at Tiananmen Square. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Beijing was attempting to use a “Stalinist-style parade” to remind China’s 1.3 billion citizens how only the Communist party could keep their country strong and safe, Bisley said. “This is not a sophisticated cosmopolitan nationalism. This is an old-school tub-thumping view of national greatness and how you express that,” he said.

Rana Mitter, the director of the University of Oxford’s Dickson Poon China Centre, said there was a genuine desire among many Chinese to see their country’s contribution to the allied victory recognised. About 15 million Chinese people lost their lives between 1937 – when full-scale fighting with Japan broke out – and 1945. Up to 100 million became refugees.

“[There is] this very strong sense that China’s contribution to the war effort is pretty much unknown in the west and underappreciated,” said Mitter, the author of Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II. “But for me the emphasis [of the parade] is overwhelmingly domestic. It is very, very much about trying to solidify and put substance behind this growing idea of Chinese national identification: the idea of identity being created through the glorious events of the relatively recent past of which the second world war has become one.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers assemble temporary seating in front of a giant portrait of Mao Zedong. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Beijing is throwing huge resources at the 3 September parade. Since June, thousands of troops have been practicing for the event at a specially built replica of Tiananmen Square in suburban Beijing. For weeks China’s state-controlled newspapers have been packed with stories detailing preparations.

Around 2.8m plant pots are being installed across the city “featuring themes of peace and victory”, Xinhua, China’s official news agency, has reported. Some 850,000 “citizen guards” are being deployed to police “every street [and] every alley” of the capital. Starting this weekend one of the city’s key entertainment districts is being placed under martial law.

Meanwhile, coal-fired power plants and more than 10,000 factories will be forced to halt or slow production in a bid to ensure the parade will take place under blue skies.

Invitations were extended to world leaders, including Barack Obama, David Cameron, Narendra Modi and Tony Abbott. But most western leaders are expected to shun the event, reluctant to be seen supporting what many view as a crude attempt to use history for political ends.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paramilitary policemen patrol Tiananmen Square as 3 September preparations take place. Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Ambassadors, defence attaches and small military units are likely to attend in their place. Seventy-one Mexican army cadets will join the procession carrying ceremonial swords, Chinese media reported on Thursday.

Bisley said the Communist party appeared unfazed by the lack of global enthusiasm for Xi’s march. “The parade itself and the whole messaging is internal and that is why in some respects the party isn’t particularly concerned about foreigners not showing up. The more they come the better. [But] they are not going to put much diplomatic capital on people not coming.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Xi Jinping, president of China. Photograph: Alexander Vilf/Host Photo Agency/Ria Novosti via Getty Images

He predicted the stands in Tiananmen Square would instead be graced by China’s “authoritarian fan club”. “It will be countries where they either have direct economic or political benefits from being seen to be close to China or those for whom there is no domestic price to be paid,” Bisley said.

Qu Rui, the PLA parade organiser, said 84% of the “homemade” military armament on show would never have been publicly showcased before. Qu dismissed claims that such a large-scale show of military hardware was a bellicose move. “Demonstrating advanced weapons is common practice around the world in military parades,” he told a televised press conference.

Nor was the parade intended as an attack on Japan. “This is not aimed at any other country,” Qu said.

The Global Times, a party-run tabloid, told its readers the parade would “become a milestone in our memory and be irreplaceable and unparalleled.”

“Embrace the final wonderment,” it said.