China Denies Using Beijing’s Parade to Pitch J-10C to Indonesia

China's military parade drew ASEAN leaders on stage. What do the optics reveal about Southeast Asia’s diplomacy, symbolism, and China ties?
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, China’s President Xi Jinping, and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, before a military parade, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, Sept. 3, 2025. (Sergey Bobylev/POOL/AFP/Sputnik)

China denied using last week’s Beijing military parade to pitch Indonesia further to buy the J-10C fighter jet. A high-level Chinese diplomat for ASEAN, in her statement, called the event a commemoration and not a sales pitch.

“It is not a showcase… nothing about a business,” Geng Hailing, a counsellor at the Chinese Mission to ASEAN, told reporters in Jakarta on Wednesday.

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by Edwin Shri Bimo

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