For Hong Kong and Macau, Beijing parade was more than sheer spectacle

The military parade in Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression drew global attention. In Hong Kong and Macau, where the ceremony was broadcast live, the emotions and reflections inspired were unique – admiration and pride mingling with questions and contemplation.

Some ask, as decennial parades have become routine, does this “muscle flexing” carry practical significance, given that China’s rise is now an established global consensus?

To address such doubts, one must move beyond a Western-centric lens and examine the parade from the perspectives of national destiny, institutional resilience and the global order – while also situating it within Hong Kong and Macau’s histories and realities.

First, the parade was an expression of national will. Many families in Hong Kong and Macau have direct or ancestral memories of the second world war, from the brutal Battle of Hong Kong to Macau’s role as a wartime refuge – histories linking the two cities to the Chinese nation’s struggle.

Marking history through a state ritual is not to rekindle hatred, but to resist forgetting – to draw strength from collective trauma, to recall that only through war can war be stopped, and to learn the lesson that backwardness invites aggression.

This is no shallow patriotic show but a declaration that the Chinese people, whether in the impoverished past or today’s fragmented world, retain a deep national cohesion. That cohesion is tangible in the orderly, formidable ranks. The parade was a collective display that helped individuals transcend their personal anxieties, creating an emotional release and resonance with the nation’s destiny.