In today’s newsletter: In hosting anti-western leaders at its largest ever military parade, Beijing sent a defiant message that will be heard loud and clear across the world

Good morning. All eyes have been on China this week as the second biggest global economy flexed its muscles.

Dozens of world leaders, including from the global south, authoritarian pariah states and the EU, attended China’s largest ever military parade on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, which China calls the war of resistance against Japanese aggression.

China’s president, Xi Jinping, was flanked by the Russian and North Korean leaders, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, in what has widely been called a show of defiance to the west. It is the first time all three leaders – who were chatting and shaking hands as they walked the red carpet in Tiananmen Square – have been seen together.

The others in attendance included Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko, Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, and Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.

It was a highly choreographed display of power from the emerging (emerged?) global superpower, with a formidable guest list that was designed to send a message to the rest of the world.

But what was that message? How does Xi hope to reshape geopolitics, and what will a more confident China mean for global human rights? I spoke to Amy Hawkins, the Guardian’s senior China correspondent, to find out. That’s after the headlines.

Five big stories

UK news | Deputy PM Angela Rayner has admitted she underpaid stamp duty on her £800,000 seaside flat, after coming under intense pressure to be more transparent about her property arrangements.

Russia | Vladimir Putin has invited Kim Jong-un to visit Russia during a lengthy meeting in Beijing on the sidelines of China’s biggest military parade, as Kim promised to do “everything I can to assist” Moscow.

Police | The Metropolitan police have declined to drop their investigation into the comedy writer Graham Linehan for tweets about trans issues, and said that the law used by officers to detain him needs reviewing.

Israel | Israeli drones dropped four grenades near UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon, the agency’s force said on Wednesday, in what it described as “one of the most serious attacks” on its personnel since a November ceasefire.

Portugal | A day of national mourning has been declared in Portugal after at least 15 people were killed when Lisbon’s well-known Gloria funicular railway car derailed and crashed on Wednesday.

In depth: China’s display of might

China’s massive display of military hardware and personnel was the culmination of a week of diplomatic grandstanding. The weekend before the military parade, dozens of leaders had descended on Tianjin, in northern China, for the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Amy Hawkins told me that when the annual summit first started in the 1990s, it included China, Russia, and several central Asian countries. “It has since expanded to 10 members and several more partner countries. It now also includes India and other Eurasian countries, central Asia, and other non-western, largely autocratic countries. The grouping represents nearly half of the world’s population and positions itself as an alternative to US-led multilateral organisations.”

During the summit, Xi Jinping announced plans to accelerate the creation of a development bank and set up an international platform for energy cooperation, in partnership with Russia and India. The summit was Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to China in seven years.

Leaders from the US such as Donald Trump (more on him in a bit), western Europe, Japan, South Korea, and other major democracies were not in attendance at the summit or the military parade.

“Instead, you had the leaders of Russia, North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, and other global south countries. It showed a united front from these anti-western or anti-US countries. It was a display of might and getting behind China’s vision,” Amy said.

Reshaping the global order

The US is seen as the undisputed global superpower, but China has, in recent years, been on its tail vying for the top position. What would a world dominated by China’s political, military and economic might look like? Amy explained China has no real interest in replacing America as the world’s police because it conceives of the global order differently from the US.

“China’s principle is that it doesn’t get involved in other countries’ affairs, but whether that’s actually the case in reality is debatable. China has always said they respect other country’s sovereignty. It rejects the idea of universal values. And that’s obviously very appealing to smaller and often autocratic countries who don’t want to be told what to do by the US, and don’t want to be criticised for their human rights records,” Amy said. “It is more that China wants to reshape the global order in a way that’s suitable for its aims both domestically and abroad.”

While China says it rejects the idea of a so-called “new cold war” with the US, the week’s summit and parade show a real hardening of a China-led bloc of largely authoritarian, anti-western leaders, Amy said. “This week really showed the pull of Beijing’s power and signalled its aim of reshaping the global order.”

Many analysts specifically focused on the show of a united force between Xi, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. “It’s the first time the three have been seen in public together. China has always had a close relationship with Russia and North Korea, but in the past year or so, Russia and North Korea have independently become closer and they’ve signed a mutual defence treaty. North Korea has sent thousands of troops to help Russia during its war in Ukraine, and has sent weapons,” Amy said.

“And as Russia and North Korea become closer, there was some speculation that China was being frozen out of the anti-western bloc. But by having all three leaders together in Beijing, with it being Kim Jong-un’s first reported international trip since 2019, it reaffirms that China is the most powerful player in that relationship.”

Peace v War

Xi’s speech during the military parade warned that the world was facing a choice between “peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum”.

“It was aggressive and while these speeches are often quite bombastic – it is a military parade after all – it wasn’t the kind of speech that was trying to placate or calm any western fears about China’s military might,” Amy said.

The 70-minute parade featured tanks, drones, long-range and nuclear-capable missiles, fighter jets and stealth aircraft. There were reports of the J15-DT, China’s new carrier-based electronic warfare jet, and a new submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile.

“China has been learning lessons from the war in Ukraine and has been thinking specifically about how it might fend off an assault on Taiwan and any aid that comes to Taiwan in that event,” Amy said.

Xi and the Chinese Communist party claim Taiwan is part of China, with which it vows to “reunify”. Taiwan’s democratically elected government and its people are opposed to this.

In response to the parade, Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, said: “The people of Taiwan cherish peace, and Taiwan does not commemorate peace with the barrel of a gun.”

The end of US-China cooperation

The US had its own military parade overseen by Donald Trump in June, but it is notable how underwhelming it was when compared with Beijing’s. The US president was watching the events that took place in China, responding in typical Trump fashion on his Truth Social platform.

“He sent this sarcastic message saying, ‘Congratulations to Xi, Putin and Kim, enjoy conspiring against the US,’” Amy said. While on one level he was critical, “Trump clearly has sympathy and admiration for the idea of showing off your country’s strengths through a massive military parade. So I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also a bit jealous.”

Another key message from this week was the end of the so-called “golden era” of US-China cooperation, most notably on climate change. “The US has become increasingly hawkish on China, both under Trump and Biden. The mood in China is that there’s not really much room to negotiate with the US. There’s no love lost between the two countries,” Amy said. “What’s important to China is to build up its alliances that are independent of any western system; such as ensuring energy security by buying more oil and gas from Russia and ensuring stability on the border with North Korea.”

The rise of China’s dominance comes off the back of a US global retreat, which will have an impact on human rights. Amy explained that cuts to USAID funding, which supported civil society groups, as well as the US’s erratic policies around tariffs as part of Trump’s America First agenda have left a vacuum on the global stage. And much to its delight, China doesn’t even need to be proactive in filling it.

“Many countries see China as the more reliable partner, economically, politically,” Amy said. This is especially true for smaller and less powerful countries who once looked to the US for support, she added.

“It is quite clear that China is going to be providing more political stability and money, without demanding democratic reforms or human rights protections. The erratic behaviour of the US in recent years has alienated many states, and China is benefiting from that.”

Therefore, as China and the US tussle for global dominance, one casualty for the rest of the world is human rights and civil liberties.