China is hosting a major military parade in capital Beijing on Wednesday, marking 80 years since the end of World War II.

In the country’s largest ever military parade, Chinese President Xi Jinping will welcome world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, presenting China’s military prowess and vision for the future.

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Here is what to expect from the parade, and why it is significant.

What time does China’s Victory Day parade start?

The event will begin on Wednesday at 9am (01:00 GMT), according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.

The last time China hosted a victory day military parade was 10 years ago. That was the first time China organised a grand military parade to commemorate the end of the war.

What could we expect?

The parade will be a presentation of Chinese military might, comprising a choreographed showcase of advanced military equipment such as drones, hypersonic missiles and fighter jets.

Hundreds of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft will be displayed in the parade, according to Chinese military officials.

State media reported that 80 buglers will be present at the parade, marking the 80 years since the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II.

More than 1,000 musicians will be sat in 14 rows, representing each year of China’s resistance since Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931.

Spectators in Tiananmen Square will be seated on chairs coloured green, red, and gold, which symbolise fertile land, the sacrifices of the people, and peace, respectively, according to China’s state broadcaster, CCTV.

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The “Victory Day” parade will feature 45 troop contingents and is expected to last about 70 minutes as they march past Xi in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Xi is also expected to make a speech.

China scaled up security across Beijing starting in August, when the rehearsals for the parade kicked off.

Who will be attending?

The military parade will be attended by 26 foreign leaders, China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Hong Lei said during a news conference on August 28.

Putin is already in China, having attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin on Sunday and Monday.

Other leaders who travelled to China for the SCO summit or related meetings, and will stay for the September 3 parade, include Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

But others are joining them, too.

North Korea’s Kim arrived in China early on Tuesday after his armoured train crossed the North Korea-China border, the state-controlled Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported.

It is the first time a North Korean leader will attend a Chinese military parade in 66 years. The last North Korean leader to attend a military parade in China was North Korea’s founder and Kim’s late grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in 1959.

Only two European leaders, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, are set to attend the event in Beijing.

While Slovakia is part of the European Union and NATO, Fico has pushed for closer ties with Russia and visited Moscow for talks with Putin in December 2024. Vucic, like Fico, has been critical of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine and has recently visited Moscow.

Why does China hold a Victory Day parade and what does it commemorate?

The German invasion of Poland in 1939, which resulted in Britain and France declaring war on Germany, is commonly considered in the Western world as the point when World War II started.

But Asia had been facing the brunt of Japanese aggression for several years by then.

After the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Japanese and Chinese troops – primarily under Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – engaged in a series of skirmishes. But at the time, the KMT and the CCP were also locked in the first phase of their own civil war for control of China, and Japan made major advances.

Then, in July 1937, Japanese and Chinese troops clashed outside of Beijing. Within days, this burgeoned into a full-blown conflict – by then, the KMT and CCP had agreed to a united front against the Japanese that would last until the end of the war in 1945.

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The Japanese military began to invade eastern cities, including Nanjing, killing thousands of civilians, destroying villages and raping women. The CCP and KMT continued to resist. Some estimates say that 20 million Chinese people died as a result of the war, a majority of them civilians.

In 1941, the United States, under Democratic President Franklin D Roosevelt, imposed an oil embargo on Japan. In December 1941, the Japanese army launched a surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, causing damage and casualties, and drawing the US into the war.

In the 1940s, Japan captured other parts of Asian countries as well, including parts of modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar, and parts of present-day India.

In 1945, the US Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and three days later, on the city of Nagasaki. After this, the Soviet Union also declared war on Japan.

Japan formally surrendered on September 2.

The CCP and KMT resumed their civil war, with the communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong, finally emerging victorious in 1949, when Chiang and his remaining KMT troops fled to Taiwan, setting up a parallel government there.

In 2014, the Chinese government declared September 3, the day after Japan’s surrender, as Victory Day.

In 2015, the CCP acknowledged the sacrifices made by KMT soldiers during the war, inviting veterans to attend the military march back then. At the time, Taiwan was ruled by the KMT – which, despite their historical tensions, has long sought closer relations with mainland China under the CCP.

Since 2016, however, Taiwan has been ruled by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has been assertive about the self-governing territory’s sovereignty. China, which insists that Taiwan must be reunited with the mainland, has been critical of the DPP.

Against that backdrop, Wednesday’s parade is expected to highlight the CCP’s role in defeating Japan.