When Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un all appeared together on a Beijing red carpet on Wednesday, it made for a powerful visual of unity against the West — but one that analysts say fell short of proving what Xi boasted was China’s “unstoppable” rise as a global leader.
Although all three nations were sending a pointed rhetorical message, multiple analysts told CNN that they saw nothing to resolve a longstanding debate in the US intelligence community about whether the three should be considered a “bloc” acting in concert or merely three opponents of the West who work together when it suits them.
There were also no outward signs of a substantive change in defense cooperation between any of the three, something that has been closely watched by US security officials particularly after North Korea began offering its soldiers to fight on Russia’s behalf in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
“Up until now, the so-called Axis of Upheaval has been largely bilateral,” said Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official and CNN contributing analyst. “This was really a photo op aimed directly at the US and its Asian allies. But it papered over underlying tensions in particular between China and North Korea…. I doubt this will turn into meaningful trilateral cooperation.”
The three leaders appeared together, chatting genially, ahead of a massive military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, a prestige event for China attended by the leaders of 26 countries, thousands of troops and more than 50,000 spectators. President Donald Trump in a post on Truth Social accused the them of “conspiring” against the United States.
“I understood the reason they were doing it, and they were hoping I was watching — and I was watching,” Trump said of the event.
While Putin has embraced Kim for his help, China’s Xi remains wary of the mercurial dictator. When the Russian defense minister visited Pyongyang to attend a military parade in 2023, it was widely seen as a formal signal from Moscow that it accepts North Korea as a nuclear state.
But Xi still “hasn’t given the full stamp of approval,” said Syd Seiler, a former senior intelligence official specializing in North Korea. “I think for Xi, this stops a little short of that,” he said, while still sending the message that China does accept the burgeoning relationship between Russia and North Korea and cannot be counted upon to try to help disrupt or break up that alliance.
The parade followed a regional summit in nearby Tianjin, which was headlined by a series of bilateral economic agreements between India and China. Russia and China on Tuesday also reached a framework agreement on a new natural gas pipeline to run from Russia to China. Although many details remain to be agreed upon, the memorandum still indicates China’s willingness to continue flouting Western efforts to economically isolate Russia over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In Pictures: China’s 80th Victory Day Parade
The parade was nevertheless a visually impressive display of military force, analysts said. China has been in the process of growing and modernizing its military and on Wednesday, unveiled a formidable array of new weaponry, including ICBMs, a hypersonic cruise missile and drones.
It was a clear effort to demonstrate China’s rise on the world stage — a rise that Ely Ratner, a former Pentagon official during the Biden administration specializing in the Indo-Pacific, said is explicitly designed to displace the United States. Sanner called it a “powerful display of China’s soft and hard power” that highlighted “China’s vision of an alternative order with an ‘unstoppable’ China in the lead.”
But Sanner and Ratner both cautioned against breathless assessments of Xi’s success at casting China as a global leader.
“The Japanese weren’t there, the Europeans weren’t there, [Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi] was there for the [Tianjin summit] but he left before the parade, which I think was no accident,” Ratner said. “Yes, China has increasing influence among the anti-American, anti-Western coalition — but that still excludes most of the most important economics and militaries in the world.”
“It’s a more mixed picture than China is winning, and America is losing,” he said.