When they when they did what they did I thought it was a beautiful ceremony I thought it was very very impressive But I understood the reason they were doing it and they were hoping I was watching and I was watching Well,
we're watching Asma and I are in the studio and we're watching the pictures from the parade in Beijing on Wednesday morning Tiananmen Square It's just enormous.
I mean, look at it.
It's enormous.
You just see a seize and seize of people.
In the surface,
this big parade is about commemorating China's victory over Japan in World War II that took place 80 years ago.
But it feels like this parade is about a whole lot more.
It's about projecting China's dominance on the world stage.
It's clearly sending a message.
Some of the team were chatting this morning before we started recording and one of our team members said,
this parade looks like the first five minutes of a history documentary about the war that's about to happen.
Gosh, that sounds a bit bleak.
The other thing that struck me this week was this parade isn't happening in isolation.
It's happening at the end of several days of political theater,
more than 20 countries with their leaders coming together,
an economic forum with Xi Jinping,
and it feels like they are coordinating themselves directly in opposition to US power.
It felt like collectively these guys have a plan.
Oh, totally.