In a show of power, China's strange bedfellows signal a new world order

After two striking images in China, Rana Mitter asks whether we've just witnessed the start of the Asian century

- Rana Mitter

Last Wednesday Tiananmen Square in Beijing hosted a massive parade. The event commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war in Asia. But with hundreds of lethal weapons complementing the thousands of soldiers marching in perfect formation it was also an advertisement for China's new military confidence - a strong contrast with the weakness that allowed Japan to invade the country in 1937.

Although Japan was defeated in 1945 by an alliance of the United States, the British empire and China, the history they commemorated was distinctly Asia-focused and the key leaders who came to the ceremony were almost all Asian. The presence of Vladimir Putin prevented any senior Americans or Europeans attending, but it didn't prevent him being feted by Xi Jinping, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un making up a trio.

The eclipse of America's war record and the rise of Asia's narrative in the second world war seems to foreshadow a new prominence for Asia's role in global politics. The parade came just days after another striking geopolitical troika when Putin was greeted by Xi and Indian premier Narendra Modi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin.

These two events - producing two striking images - have led some to question whether this was the week that the Asian century truly began.

The retreat from liberal values in much of the west has given Asia's agnosticism about politics freer rein. Asia still maintains liberal democracies (South Korea, Taiwan), less liberal ones (India, Indonesia) and authoritarian states (China, Vietnam). But Asia's leaders do not criticise each other on internal governance. The celebration of the second world war in Beijing may have referenced anti-fascism, but it was certainly not a celebration of the triumph of democracy.