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China welcomed the month of September with two major events, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin and China's 80th Victory Parade in Beijing. Both offered a vivid display of how global power is now staged through symbols, optics, and orchestrated imagery.
At the SCO Summit, a striking photograph captured Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi laughing alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On the surface, it showed warmth and camaraderie. Yet beneath the smiles lay a deeper message, a world recalibrating its alignments.
India’s participation, despite the United States' tariffs and pressure over Russian oil purchases, suggested its intent to diversify partnerships beyond the West. For Xi and Putin, the summit was a chance to spotlight their vision of a multipolar order resisting “hegemonism.”
The optics mattered as much as the outcomes. The viral image itself became a political tool — compared by commentators to a “reverse Nixon moment” — hinting at solidarity and signalling a slow but significant rebalancing of influence away from US dominance.
Read Farheen Hussain's story: SCO Summit 2025: Optics, Alliances, and a Shifting World Order
Just days later, Beijing’s Victory Parade amplified this theme of symbolic messaging. Marking 80 years since the end of World War II, China staged one of its grandest military spectacles, unveiling hypersonic missiles, stealth aircraft, robot wolves, and AI-enabled drones.
Xi Jinping framed the moment starkly: humanity faced a choice between “peace or war.” Domestically, the parade evoked national pride, reminding citizens of China’s journey from wartime victimhood to today’s military might.
Internationally, the optics were sharpened by the presence of controversial leaders such as Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Their attendance reinforced a visible bloc of powers seeking to challenge the US-led order, projecting defiance through their very presence on the Tiananmen stage.
Read Carla Teng-Westergaard's story: China's 80th Victory Parade and the Politics of Power and Symbolism
Both the summit and the parade highlight how symbolism has become strategy. Smiles at Tianjin conveyed as much as speeches; missiles on Chang’an Avenue spoke as loudly as Xi’s warnings.
Together, they illustrate a shift in which states are not only negotiating behind closed doors but also competing through powerful images and choreographed displays.
The SCO Summit’s laughter and the Victory Parade’s firepower, though different in form, share a common thread — each event was carefully staged to signal multipolar ambition, and to reshape narratives of global leadership, and to reflect the emergence of a more multipolar balance of power.
-Asia Media Centre
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