Revealing Reactions to China’s Festival of Optics

China's military parade drew ASEAN leaders on stage. What do the optics reveal about Southeast Asia’s diplomacy, symbolism, and China ties?
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, (L-R) Russia's President Vladimir Putin walks with China's President Xi Jinping and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un before a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on September 3, 2025. (Photo by Sergey Bobylev / POOL / AFP)

In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in 2025.

One is the waves of uncannily synchronized soldiers and a bewildering array of high-tech weaponry gliding down Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue. The second is the instantly iconic pictures of Chinese President Xi Jinping laughing with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and India’s Narendra Modi, and the latter two walking hand-in-hand at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin.

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by Cobus van Staden

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