Chinese President Xi Jinping staged a grand military parade on Wednesday in Beijing that carried a warning: If the United States continues to bully China and its allies, then Beijing has ominous options to fight back.
The parade featured thousands of goose-stepping soldiers and an impressive array of military hardware and weaponry for fighting on the ground and in the air. It broadcast a clear message that China is a powerful, viable alternative ally for those looking to replace an unpredictable and self-serving US.
The spectacle punctuated four months of high-profile efforts by China to fend off punishing US trade tariffs leveled against countries across the globe. Yet for all these efforts and signaling, Beijing is hampered by its own reputation as a self-serving bully willing to use power to coerce smaller nations.
Not only does China surreptitiously support Russia’s three-year-long war on Ukraine, it frequently flouts international law in the interest of military expansion at sea. On the economic front, meanwhile, it is aggressively dumping its excess manufactures onto world markets, undermining local industries that can’t compete on price.
These realities complicate China’s push to present itself as a benign and benevolent global force – even as US President Donald Trump’s devil-may-care “America First” assault on relations with friend and foe alike reduces its attractiveness as a global leader.
Take India, for example, which is entangled in a hot trade dispute with Washington, resulting in a punitive 50% tariff on all Indian goods. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, which took place in advance of Xi’s military parade.
Modi’s presence at the summit sparked excited speculation that India may be poised to enter an alliance with China, breaking with New Delhi’s long history of non-alignment in foreign affairs. Though the two sides agreed to resume direct flights, long suspended over a Himalayan border dispute, there is no sign that their core issues are close to resolution.
Modi also gingerly suggested that Moscow ought to end the Ukraine war, a grinding conflict that China tacitly supports by supplying chemical products, gunpowder and special industrial components for military manufacturing to its ally Russia.
Meanwhile, Chinese organizers took pains to avoid any awkward moments that might interrupt the bonhomie and supposed unity of the event. In particular, event ushers kept Modi away from Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Tensions between the nuclear powers still simmer after a brief battle earlier this year, where Pakistan used Chinese-supplied weaponry to down Indian fighters. “Optics can supplement and highlight convergences, but they cannot cover up real divergences,” wrote Amitabh Dubeym, an opposition critic of Modi.
Despite the SCO summit optics, there is no indication that Modi plans to jettison India’s membership in the Quad, a grouping that includes the United States, Japan and Australia, and exists primarily to counter China’s rising military and economic power in the Indo-Pacific.
In Washington, meanwhile, Trump said negotiations with India on a trade deal were progressing, hinting at a possible reconciliation between the two sides after hitting a new nadir over India’s purchase of sanctioned Russian oil.
China is looking well beyond India and SCO members in building a new front against the US. During an April visit to three Southeast Asian countries – Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia – Xi airbrushed any tensions with them while trying to entice each into taking China’s side in the tariff war, of which the countries are now also victims.
A few days before the tour, Xi convened a meeting in Beijing to declare the “Indochina peninsula” as a foreign policy priority. At every stop, Xi signed accords that offered his hosts trade deals, infrastructure projects and other aid designed to mitigate local damage from US tariffs.
But while each Southeast Asian country accepted the gifts, no nation overtly pledged to join an anti-US bloc. Rather, they opted to keep their great power options open, recognizing that despite friction, trade with the US remains essential to their respective economies, even in the face of higher tariffs.
Vietnam “remains steadfast in its non-alignment foreign policy, which prioritizes maintaining a delicate balance between the two superpowers,” wrote Le Hong Hiep, author and coordinator of Vietnam studies at Singapore’s Yusof Ishak Institute.
“As a smaller power in an era of great power competition, Vietnam must adapt itself and learn to dance to the tunes of both the US and China, navigating their competing demands while striving to maintain its independent foreign policy,” he added.
Vietnam and Malaysia, both ASEAN members, remain cautious of China’s trade and security ambitions in the region, including over disputed territories in the South China Sea.
“While Beijing emphasizes peace and cooperation in public diplomacy, it has not fundamentally altered its posture on the maritime disputes,” wrote Li Mingjiang, a nonresident scholar at Carnegie China, an East Asia-based think tank.
Li noted that a long-pending Code of Conduct for governing the South China Sea is still delayed. “This suggests that China is not yet prepared to fully accommodate regional countries’ security concerns,” Li surmised.
“In all three [Southeast Asian] trips, details on the litany of agreements and memorandums of understanding were sparse, and implementation is likely to fall well short of expectations,” predicted Laura Mai, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
“But for Xi, the symbolism was likely they, as he presents China as a reliable partner in contrast to the United States and urged Southeast Asia states not to cut any deals with the Trump Administration that might damage Beijing’s interests,” Mai wrote.
In July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited the European Union headquarters in Brussels, following a warm message he delivered at the Munich Security Conference.
“China has always seen in Europe an important pole in the multipolar world. The two sides are partners, not rivals,” he said. “China is willing to work with the European side to deepen strategic communication and mutually beneficial cooperation and steer the world to a bright future of peace, security, prosperity and progress.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen responded with a tougher line, saying China is “using a quasi-monopoly not only as a bargaining chip, but also weaponizing it to undermine competitors in key industries.”
She voiced concerns about an “increased flood” of subsidized Chinese goods into European markets to soften the blow of US protectionism and tariffs. She also expressed concern over EU dependence on Chinese raw materials, including rare-earth minerals, needed for many high-tech industries.
ThinkChina, a Singapore-based e-journal, suggested that while Europe generally sees eye-to-eye with Washington on China trade issues, Trump’s stance is complicating a unified front.
“It would be tempting for the EU to strengthen links with like-minded countries, including the US, Japan and Canada, but the Trump administration has been anything but easy to deal with,” ThinkChina wrote. “At least von der Leyen is now prepared to tell China it cannot do whatever it wants in Europe, or with Europe,” the journal said.