The Communist Party's mouthpiece People's Daily confirmed this morning that the country will hold its first-ever "Anti-Fascist Military Parade" this year - the first military parade ever to be held on a date other than National Day (October 1).
The decision, ratified at the meetings of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing, also marks the first time foreign heads of state will be invited to review the troops alongside president Xi Jinping. Xi and Russian president Vladimir Putin have already confirmed that they will be attending each other's Anti-Fascist parades.
Russia celebrates Victory Day on May 9, the day after Nazi Germany capitulated to the Soviet Union on the evening of May 8, 1945. Victory Day in China falls on September 3, the day after Japan surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
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Historically, the date has retained resonance amongst the ROC government-in-exile in Taiwan, where it has been celebrated continuously as Armed Forces Day; but in Chinese mainland it was overlooked until recently in favor of revolutionary holidays such as International Labor Day and the founding of the PLA. In the Mao years, the war, in which the US-allied regime of Chiang Kai-shek ultimately triumphed over Japan, largely disappeared from public memory - unless it was the role of Mao's Communist guerillas being celebrated.
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Under Xi Jinping, however, China has seen the codification of ever more commemorative dates anchored in the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance - namely Martyr's Day and the first Nanjing Massacre Memorial Day, which was held in December last year. Now, the patriotic nationalist narrative of Chinese history increasingly pushed post-1989, combined with increasing tensions with Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, has propelled the war back into the front pages.
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From 1949 to 1959, China held military parades every year on National Day. During the Great Leap Forward, however, Beijing decided it could no longer afford this extravagance and switched to holding a 'small parade' every 5 years and a 'big parade' once a decade.
After the Cultural Revolution was launched in 1966, however, parades were called off altogether until Deng Xiaoping held the first military review of the Reform and Opening Up era on October 1, 1984, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the PRC's founding. China has since returned to the traditional of holding major military reviews once every ten years - most recently for the PRC's 50th anniversary in 1999 and 60th anniversary in 2009.
Official Chinese media has suggested that this years Anti-Fascist parade is intended to "intimidate Japan" and "show the world China's determination to maintain the post-war world order."
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