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\n A display shows China’s President Xi Jinping delivering a speech during a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3, 2025, in Beijing.
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Lintao Zhang\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Lintao Zhang\/Getty Images<\/p>\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n HONG KONG \u2014 China staged a highly choreographed military parade on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.<\/p>\n It was a grand display of China’s ambitions, its alliances and its expanding influence. Thousands of goose-stepping soldiers marched through Tiananmen Square, in the heart of Beijing, as Chinese President Xi Jinping looked on from above.<\/p>\n More than two dozen world leaders attended. Topping the guest list were Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.<\/p>\n It marked the first time that the three men \u2013 leaders of a group of countries that the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, labeled a “new axis of upheaval”<\/u><\/a> \u2013 have come together at one event.<\/p>\n