Sinica Podcast: "What Did the September 3 Parade Mean?"

Host: Kaiser Kuo
Guests: Senior Colonel (Ret.) Zhou Bo and Professor Rana Mitter
Date: September 10, 2025

Overview

This episode of the Sinica Podcast explores the significance of the massive September 3, 2025 military parade in Beijing, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Japanese surrender and the end of World War II. Kaiser Kuo first talks with Senior Colonel (Ret.) Zhou Bo, a PLA veteran and Tsinghua University Senior Fellow, to unpack the parade’s military, political, and diplomatic dimensions. In the second half, Oxford-turned-Harvard historian Rana Mitter analyzes how the parade’s history narrative fits China's evolving memory politics and geopolitical messaging. The episode covers the parade’s intended audiences, military hardware, historical claims, alliance optics, and the subtle interplay between performance, memory, and power.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Parade Objectives, Audiences & Messaging

• Correction of History

  • Zhou Bo emphasizes the parade's domestic role in clarifying China’s own war history (changing the resistance war length from 8 to 14 years), boosting “national pride” and “patriotism.”
    • Quote [05:23]: “First of all, in a correction of history and in part a correction of Chinese people's own understanding of history... That is a primary purpose.”

• International Signaling: Deterrence vs. Transparency

  • The parade is both a "showcase of strength” and an “unprecedented effort in transparency.” It enables foreign observers to assess the PLA’s true capabilities.
    • Quote [06:13]: “You could argue this is flexing muscles, right? Absolutely. But it could also be...an unprecedented effort in transparency.”

• Multiple Audiences

  • The event has layered messaging: boosting domestic legitimacy, deterring adversaries, reassuring partners, and demonstrating technological advances.

2. Military Hardware & Modernization

• Key Differences:

  • Compared to prior parades (2019/2015), the 2025 display highlighted rapid PLA advances, with “leaps and bounds” in six years, particularly in smaller, more agile technologies like drones, anti-drone, laser, and microwave systems.
    • Quote [08:50]: “It is those much smaller stuff that actually has drawn my attention such as drones or anti drone system and the laser weapon system... These are something new.”

• Lessons from Ukraine

  • The parade’s anti-drone and EW systems show the PLA is actively learning from ongoing wars, especially the conflict in Ukraine.

• Integration and Command Capabilities

  • Zhou stresses that actual military effectiveness lies in integration—command, control, communications, and logistics—not just hardware:
    • Quote [12:04]: "Hardware are so, so important...but the point is, how could you integrate all the system?"

• Arms Market Bifurcation and AI

  • Predicts an eventual global division into American and Chinese arms ecosystems, with China’s affordability and AI leadership making it competitive.

3. Nuclear Triad and Naval Power

• Hypersonic Missiles & Nuclear Triad

  • The first full display of China’s nuclear triad—including land-based, submarine-launched, and air-launched nuclear missiles—was especially noted in Western commentary.
  • Explains how hypersonics complicate missile defense by exploiting atmospheric/near-space boundaries.

• Naval Advancements

  • Highlights unmanned undersea vehicles and JL-3 submarine-launched ICBM with vastly extended range, enhancing second-strike survivability.

4. PLA Posture: Peaceful Rise or Intimidation?

• PLA’s Non-Belligerent Record

  • Zhou underscores the PLA's restraint: China hasn’t fought a war since 1979 and “has not killed a single foreigner elsewhere apart from Chinese territory."
    • Quote [18:27]: “Ever since 1979, China actually has entered into no war with anyone...absolutely remarkable or even miraculous...”

• Calibration: Power vs. Restraint

  • Balancing muscular displays with claims to peaceful intent, citing specific case studies in the South China Sea and India skirmishes as limited-force use.

5. Alliance Optics: Xi, Putin, Kim on the Stand

• Zhou downplays foreign suspicions about a solid China–Russia–DPRK bloc, highlighting the limits to their cooperation and divergence of interests.

  • Quote [22:06]: “This kind of description...just because these three people stand together in a picture is total nonsense...It's hard for me to imagine [a bloc].”

• Argues that, should a US–China conflict arise, neither side would command a tight alliance.

6. US–China Relations & Trump Administration

• Zhou Bo warns that inflammatory US rhetoric overstates bloc behavior or “conspiracies”—offering a more measured Chinese response.

• Notes Trump’s lack of clear China policy, contrasts with Biden.

• Taiwan Tensions

  • Asserts the US can best preserve peace by maintaining the possibility of peaceful reunification (“Let the Chinese government believe peaceful reunification is still possible”).

7. Peacekeeping and China’s Role

• Discusses potential for China to contribute to peacekeeping in Ukraine and broader peace initiatives.
• Suggests a China-led, Global South-heavy peacekeeping force could be acceptable to Russia and others as a future model.

8. Performance and Memory Politics: Rana Mitter’s View

• Shifting Narrative Emphasis

  • 2025 marks a new tone: cross-Strait historical unity (2015) is gone; Taiwan’s DPP resists Beijing’s historical narrative, and PRC increasingly omits Nationalist contributions, or universalizes them under “China.”
    • Quote [51:40]: “In 2015...it was very much about what they could find to say about the war together. Fast forward, that's very much not what's going on.”

• Reviving the Sino-Soviet Narrative

  • Putin’s presence, a “muted” Russian role in 2015, now foregrounded as part of a co-victor storyline, downplaying the US role.

• UN Peacekeeping Optics

  • Prominence of China’s UN peacekeepers signals a claim to global stewardship within the post-1945 order (“China is the global stabilizer”).

9. Historical Narrative, Omissions, and Revisionism

• Mitter details how current narrative rarely outright falsifies, but instead re-frames by omission: emphasizing Soviet and CCP roles, minimizing American and Nationalist contributions, e.g., the lack of reference to extensive US logistic, air, and advisory help.

• KMT’s Gradual Rehabilitation

  • Visible but carefully depoliticized, with “China” replacing “KMT” or “ROC” in many venues. References to Chiang Kai-shek avoided or depicted neutrally.

• On Overcorrection and Balanced History

  • Mitter and Kuo caution against opposing ahistorical Western claims (e.g., “the Communists did nothing”), and urge for inclusion of the complexity: the multi-actor resistance, including Red and Nationalist forces, Americans, and Soviets.

10. Audience Reception & History Wars

• Trump’s rhetoric, and other Western responses, fuel misunderstanding or politicize the memory of World War II, yet Mitter notes modest improvements in Western museum displays and curriculum, slowly raising awareness of China’s role.

11. "Asian-ness" and Regional Dynamics

• The parade and accompanying events (e.g., SCO meeting with Modi attending) consciously project an “Asian” approach to regional security, showing an inclination toward multipolarity, even as underlying frictions remain.

Notable Quotes & Moments

On Parade Objectives:

• Zhou Bo [05:23]:
  "First of all, in a correction of history and in part a correction of Chinese people's own understanding of history... This is a primary purpose of understanding our own history correctly... But what is more important is how it would be received by international audience."

On Muscular Display vs. Peaceful Messaging:

• Kaiser Kuo [17:46]:
  "All of this adds up to a quite muscular show. Chinese officials described this as a commemoration about peace. How does the PLA think about calibrating... visibility of these capabilities... and on the other hand, to Signal restraint rather than threat?"

• Zhou Bo [18:27]:
  "There seems to be a contradiction, right? When you talk about peace, but you're showing up your muscles. But in China's case, this is absolutely perfect for us to combine these two into one."

On “Bloc” Optics:

• Zhou Bo [22:06]:
  "This kind of description of these three countries coming to lines just because these three people stand together in a picture is total nonsense... It's hard for me to imagine [a glue that binds these three together]."

On US–China Security Dilemma:

• Zhou Bo [45:13]:
  "Neither China nor United States wants to have a conflict. The only question is how to avoid it... We do not have demarcated spheres of influence. So we are just having too many dangerous encounters..."

On CCP Narrative Construction:

• Rana Mitter [51:40]:
  "What I'd say is most different for me... First, Taiwan... the DPP presidency of Lai Jingde has certainly made a strong case... about pushing back against authoritarian governments... In return, the PRC has doubled down on... a historically rather partial view of the Taiwan question."

On Omission vs. Commission in History:

• Rana Mitter [58:56]:
  "It's now quite rare... for the Chinese authorities to put in something that actually historians would completely disagree with... The main thing is a sort of narrative by omission."

On the Importance of China’s Resistance:

• Rana Mitter [74:19]:
  "The Chinese resistance and contribution, I would say, is essential... Had Asia—meaning China—really essentially folded by 1938, then...the way in which you get that combined with an Asian war is hard to see because you don't have a Pearl harbor in a world where the Chinese have just been defeated by the Japanese."

On Reading History Critically:

• Rana Mitter [98:13]:
  “If you want to inoculate against both naive acceptance or reflexive dismissal of official Beijing or anywhere else Taipei WWII narrative... read widely; understand the complexity of the Chinese revolution, as well as the multiplicity of actors involved in WWII China.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:49] Major objectives and audiences for the parade (Zhou Bo)
• [08:30] Advances in weapons and systems since last parades
• [13:48] Hypersonic/nuclear triad discussion
• [17:44] Peaceful rise vs. show of force; record of PLA restraint
• [21:35] Alliance signaling: Xi, Putin, Kim—perceptual impacts
• [27:55] Responding to Trump administration provocations
• [32:11] US Regional focus and impact on stability
• [39:31] China’s possible role in Ukraine peacekeeping
• [45:13] Avoiding US–China security spiral
• [50:31] Rana Mitter on parade narrative and historical shifts
• [66:53] CCP–KMT narrative: from caricature to nuanced representation
• [74:12] European blind spots in WWII Asian theater
• [80:14] The performative, theatrical function of the parade
• [84:26] Regional configuration: India, Japan, SCO, “Asian-ness”
• [89:52] How parades and narrative politics play in the West
• [91:00] Does Chinese global ambition signal more than regional goals?
• [98:13] How to become a sophisticated reader of WWII China history

Additional Reading Recommendations

• Rana Mitter recommends Enchanted Revolution by Xiaofei Kang for nuanced CCP history and suggests deeper engagement with academic and museum resources, as well as his own Forgotten Ally for a global view of China's WWII experience.

Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced view of the September 3 parade, emphasizing its historical, military, and geopolitical messaging. Through the voices of both an insider (Zhou Bo) and a leading historian (Mitter), listeners gain a balanced perspective on how China manages its memory of war, advances its military modernization, negotiates alliances (real and imagined), and shapes global narratives—while also seeing the limits and contradictions within both official and popular Western understandings of China's wartime legacy and strategic intent.