Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will join Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a military parade in Beijing next week, marking a rare joint appearance for the three in a show of unity amid growing Western pressure.
The parade, on 3 September, commemorates Japan’s formal surrender in 1945 and the end of the Second World War. China was forced to fight a long, bloody war against Japanese occupation from 1931 to 1945, making it a key front of the campaign against Axis powers.
