Beijing Victory Parade: Xi, Putin, and Kim Together After 66 Years
Date: September 3, 2025
Author: BioPharma Business Intelligence Unit (BBIU)
Primary Sources: AP News (Sept 3, 2025), The Guardian (Sept 3, 2025), The Sun (Sept 3, 2025), Washington Post (Sept 2, 2025), JoongAng Ilbo (Sept 3, 2025), Reuters (Sept 3, 2025).
Executive Summary
For the first time since 1959, the leaders of China, Russia, and North Korea stood side by side on Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate during a military parade. Xi Jinping hosted the 80th anniversary of China’s “Victory over Fascism” commemoration, joined by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. The visual choreography projected an image of renewed Eurasian alignment in direct counterbalance to the U.S.–Japan–Korea trilateral. Beyond symbolism, the event also featured the unveiling of “next-generation” Chinese weapons and clear signals of tightening military-economic coordination.
Five Laws of Epistemic Integrity
1. Truthfulness of Information
All major global outlets confirm the unprecedented convergence of Xi, Putin, and Kim. The seating order (Xi at center, Putin left, Kim right) and synchronized entrance are reported consistently. Photographic and video evidence supports these accounts.
Verdict: High integrity (confirmed fact).
2. Source Referencing
Coverage spans international and regional sources:
AP and Reuters: detailed protocol and veteran tributes.
Guardian: live contextual updates, noting the historic parallel to 1959.
Washington Post: emphasis on weapons modernization.
The Sun: rhetorical framing as a “threat to the West.”
JoongAng Ilbo (Korea): historical comparison and domestic reception.
Verdict: Strong referencing across ideologically diverse outlets.
3. Reliability & Accuracy
While Western sources stress the threatening optics, Chinese state media framed it as “celebration of peace through strength.” The reliability gap lies in interpretive emphasis, not in factual misreporting. The accuracy of chronology, location, and participants is consistent.
Verdict: Reliable factual base, interpretive divergence.
4. Contextual Judgment
The imagery recalls 1959 (Kim Il Sung–Mao–Khrushchev), yet today’s alliance is tactical, not ideological. China remains cautious about entanglement, Russia is seeking relief under sanctions, and North Korea seeks legitimacy and economic assistance. The contextual judgment is that this was less a formal pact and more a synchronized spectacle aimed at signaling unity against U.S. encirclement.
Verdict: Moderate integrity – requires geopolitical qualification.
5. Inference Traceability
Inferences about “anti-Western alignment” trace directly to observable symbols:
Shared central placement.
Military parade setting.
Xi’s speech about resisting hegemonism.
Ongoing Russia–DPRK arms trade and China’s diplomatic cover.
Verdict: High traceability, clear causal chain.
BBIU Opinion
The Parade as a Geopolitical Litmus Test
Xi’s intention: stage a military spectacle showing China’s leadership of a united bloc.
Reality: The guest list became a litmus test of who fears Trump.
Present: Russia, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Cuba — actors with no negotiation channel left with Washington.
Absent or emissary-level: India, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea — states that still need Trump’s market, security, or financial concessions.
Result: The parade inadvertently highlighted U.S. leverage over the global South, even during a show meant to glorify Chinese power.
South Korea’s Symbolic Downgrade
Seoul sent only the Speaker of the National Assembly.
Optically, South Korea was less visible than North Korea in Beijing.
In Trump’s transactional worldview, this may signal that Kim is a higher-value interlocutor than Lee Jae-myung.
For South Korea, this was a defensive maneuver — avoiding Trump’s anger — but it cost symbolic capital at the very moment Pyongyang was elevated.
North Korea’s Unexpected Victory
From pariah to indispensable: By supplying Russia with artillery and missiles, Pyongyang gained utility beyond its borders.
Parade optics: Kim was placed shoulder-to-shoulder with Xi and Putin, projecting equality in a bloc he once depended on for survival.
Relative inversion: South Korea looked peripheral, while North Korea looked central.
Future leverage: Kim can now negotiate with Trump from a position of strength: not as a desperate rogue, but as a recognized pillar of an anti-U.S. axis.
Trump’s Emerging Leverage
Trump’s shadow dominated the parade: the very absences proved that leaders were hedging to protect space for future U.S. negotiations.
With Seoul: Trump can now demand more — bases, tariffs, investments — citing South Korea’s symbolic weakness in Beijing.
With Pyongyang: Trump gains an opening for a new spectacle deal. He may not secure denuclearization, but he can push for freezes, moratoriums, or cosmetic dismantlement in exchange for recognition.
With Xi: Trump can frame himself as the one actor who can peel Kim away from Beijing, neutralizing the only winner of Xi’s parade.
Xi’s Mediocre Result
Xi achieved optical unity with Putin and Kim, but at the cost of exposing China’s inability to mobilize the broader BRICS or Global South into military symbolism. What was meant to show China’s dominance instead underscored its limits: most emerging states are not willing to risk Trump’s retaliation. Xi remains the central actor in Asia, but his parade revealed the fragility of his coalition.
Structural Implications
North Korea’s rise: Pyongyang is no longer marginal; it is a “third pole” in Eurasian strategy.
South Korea’s anxiety: Seoul risks being sidelined if Trump prefers Kim as a direct negotiating partner.
BRICS fracture: Only China, Russia, and Iran showed military solidarity; others stayed away, underscoring that BRICS unity is economic, not strategic.
Trump’s global leverage: The parade gave him a ready-made negotiation map: reward the fearful, pressure the hesitant, and exploit Kim’s new status.
The geopolitical message of the parade is not China’s strength, but the hierarchy of fear it revealed. Xi tried to show unity; instead, he revealed fragmentation. Putin gained optics, but dependency was obvious. The only true winner was Kim Jong Un, who turned artillery exports into political capital and stood as an equal beside the world’s two most powerful autocrats.
For Trump, the lesson is clear:
North Korea is now worth more than it was in 2018.
South Korea is symbolically weaker and thus more vulnerable to demands.
China is not invincible — its coalition fractures at the sight of Trump’s retaliation.
Xi’s parade was meant to demonstrate a new order. Instead, it produced a new paradox: the stronger China tried to appear, the more it exposed its limits, and the more Kim Jong Un emerged as the only true beneficiary.
Annex – North Korea in the Trump/Lee Reunification Equation (Scenario Analysis)
1. North Korea’s New Symbolic Position
The Beijing parade placed Kim Jong Un beside Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin — a striking image that raised North Korea’s symbolic profile. This may increase Pyongyang’s perceived value in future diplomacy, but it does not automatically translate into concrete power.
2. Trump’s Hypothetical View
In a scenario where Trump returns to direct negotiation:
He may prioritize optics over substance, seeking a symbolic nuclear freeze or moratorium rather than full disarmament.
He could treat Kim as a bargaining chip to pressure China and South Korea.
He might even imagine permanent base rights in Korea as part of a “grand bargain.”
These are suppositions based on Trump’s prior negotiation style and worldview, not confirmed intentions.
3. Lee’s Hypothetical View
From Seoul’s perspective, if unification were ever placed on the table:
Absorbing DPRK territory could be the only long-term lever to overcome demographic and economic stagnation.
Lee could, in theory, offer the U.S. extended base rights (Pyeongtaek plus a northern site) as the price of protection and recognition.
This would create a pathway to full unification, though at great cost and risk.
Again, this is not fact — it is a scenario projection built on structural incentives.
4. The Grand Bargain Scenario (Suppositional)
One conceivable outcome, if Trump pressed maximal demands, would be a “grand bargain”:
Trump’s gain: historic legacy + bases + missile shield.
Lee’s gain: national unification + restored sovereignty.
Kim’s role: reduced to leverage in a deal, with his arsenal used for optics.
China’s loss: denied a Pacific outlet, forced to face U.S. bases at its border.
This scenario is hypothetical, constructed to explore the logic of what might emerge if Trump and Lee pursued maximalist outcomes.
5. Risks in This Hypothesis
Short-term slump: DPRK absorption would initially contract Korea’s economy.
Domestic backlash: Permanent U.S. land rights could be seen as surrender of sovereignty.
Regional escalation: China and Russia would fiercely resist.
Annex Conclusion
The discussion above represents scenario analysis, not prediction. It is grounded in structural incentives (Trump’s transactional style, Lee’s unification legacy, China’s Pacific ambitions) but should be read as exploratory hypothesis.
The irony of Xi’s parade is that while it elevated Kim in the short term, it may have also set the stage for long-term scenarios in which his role is reduced to a bargaining element between larger powers.
