Over the past decade, as China has gone about choosing ways to assert its increasing political and economic global dominance, a phrase is almost inevitably kept as a caveat: that it is a “peaceful rise”. So on a day of spectacles on October 1 to mark the 60th anniversary of communist rule in the People’s Republic of China, the words “harmonious” and “socialism with Chinese characteristics” were conspicuous. China, conscious of being heckled at the high tables of multilateral organisations that it is not weighing in enough on key global issues, is always at pains to show it is a global stakeholder. But on October 1, the conversation seemed to be more domestic, with Beijing’s Tiananmen Square rocking to a show of military power and pyrotechnics to celebrate the Communist Party as much as the country.

Among the highlights were the display of intercontinental ballistic missiles (including one that could reach the US) in a Chinese-made only parade of weaponry and a half-hour-long firework display that’s said to have outshone the 2008 spectacular at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. For these dramatic feats the air over the city on Thursday was suddenly clear of its smog and haze and the possibility of rain, reportedly through cloud seeding. And impressions that this was, a year after the Games, another coming out party were deepened with the induction of Beijing 2008 veterans Zhang Yimou, one of world cinema’s most acclaimed filmmakers, to choreograph the show, and Cai Guo-Qiang to oversee the fireworks.

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