TOMORROW, China will mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2 at its “Victory Parade” in Beijing.
Prominently missing will be the leaders of the Global North. Earlier in May, when Russia had its “Victory Parade”, they were missing, too. Don’t go blaming Moscow and Beijing for not inviting them.
How could they when Washington and Brussels keep blaming Russia and China for everything that is wrong with the world when they were the primary cause?
Yet they dare mount the moral mound, peddling “our values” to us. The world is being turned topsy-turvy by these global bullies. They even turn on themselves. The United States-European Union “war” of sorts is on, first on tariffs and now on technology.
With deflated egos and a vault full of envy, they will spy from far every word that Chinese President Xi Jinping chooses in his speech tomorrow. They will watch, too, the military might being paraded.
And the Western media will pick and choose those words, only to flay them to the satisfaction of their governments. What a servile bunch of journalists they have turned themselves into.
China watchers are expecting Xi to address the turbulence caused to the global order by the West and more. But he is likely to begin with the lack of appreciation for the sacrifices of China and Russia in ending World War 2.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim will be among some world leaders who will get a chance to hear firsthand this world according to Xi as front seat invitees.
Earlier, they joined 38 other world leaders at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit, an entity with a focus on security in Central Asia and the wider region. China’s sacrifices in World War 2 is no small loss.
According to the South China Morning Post, 35 million of its soldiers and civilians were killed in the war. Russia, as the Soviet Union, lost 24 million soldiers and civilians. For sure, they weren’t the only two countries to have their people killed in World War 2.
Malaya, too, lost 100,000 of its soldiers and civilians in the war. The list is long, with total deaths estimated to number 70 to 85 million. But the global bullies don’t seem to have learnt their lesson. They are repeating history. No war is necessary.
Isn’t it why the victors — the nations of the Allied Forces — set up the United Nations, with the promise of never again waging the scourge of war? The UN Charter is no longer an instrument of peace, but one of war.
The UN Security Council is now nothing more than a toadying plaything of one nation. The West has no one to blame but itself for pushing the Global South to seek an alternative world order — a multipolar one — that will give voice to the long-neglected developing and emerging nations.
This is not a breakaway UN. Not at all. They tried reviving it, but what can one do with a cadaver except bury it. There is a lesson here for the silenced South: never behave like the West if a just world is the goal.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
