At a time when Beijing is assembling the memory of the Global South with pomp and strategy, the West, relegated to the rank of frustrated spectator, powerlessly contemplates the world it believed it ruled.
The commemoration of the 80th anniversary as a manifesto of the multipolar world
On September 3, Beijing will not only celebrate the end of the war against militaristic Japan. It will erect a diplomatic monument to the resilience of the Global South and the emergence of a post-Western world order. The ceremony, held in Tiananmen Square, will bring together some twenty heads of state from the global majority, including Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, as well as heads of state from Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, and the Arab world. Narendra Modi, two days earlier, attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin and held detailed discussions with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
This constellation of official presences is not simply a matter of ceremonial protocol: it demonstrates political solidarity based on the challenge to Western norms, the assertion of strategic sovereignty, and the desire to redefine the narrative frameworks of historical memory. The absence of major Western powers – the United States, the European Union, and Japan – accentuates the contrast between an Atlantic’s bloc losing influence and an expanding multipolar arc capable of mobilizing shared narratives and pragmatic alliances.
The simultaneous participation of leaders – like Putin and Kim Jong Un – under sanctions from the global minority or at odds with its institutions underscores Beijing’s ability to the United States marginalized by the post-1945 liberal order, while rehabilitating their role in anti-colonial struggles and historical resistance. In this sense, the Beijing ceremony not only celebrates a military victory; it also consecrates a narrative, diplomatic, and symbolic victory for the post-Western world.
This gathering is therefore not insignificant: it is part, de jure and de facto, of a Chinese strategy to consolidate leadership in the Global South alongside its BRICS allies. China will stage a military parade displaying its “next-generation combat capabilities,” in a demonstration of technological and symbolic power. The choice of date – September 3, the day Japan surrendered in 1945, highlights historical significance and allows Beijing to restore collective memory by condemning Japan’s attempts to revise history.
Kim Jong Un’s presence, for the first time since 2019, will seal a new phase in the Sino-Korean alliance, while Putin’s presence, under a ridiculous ICC arrest warrant, will openly defy Western legal norms that are more antithetical than ever. Beijing, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, will display its normative independence and its ability to welcome, they say, “the pariahs” of the Western order without hesitation.
The collective West is between historical denial and geopolitical marginalization
Faced with this demonstration of unity from the Global South, the collective West – the United States, the European Union, NATO – will appear disjointed, isolated, and overwhelmed. Neither Washington nor Brussels nor London, much less Tokyo, will be represented at a high level. Only Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico may stand out as a European exception, highlighting the fragmentation of positions within the EU. Japan, concerned about the event’s “anti-Japanese tone,” has tried to dissuade Asian and European leaders from participating, without success.
This absence reveals a profound divide: the West, once master of historical narrative, is losing its monopoly on memory. While Beijing rehabilitates the memory of Asian resistance, the West is mired in a Eurocentric reading of the Second World War, ignoring the Nanking massacres or Japanese war crimes. The Global South, long relegated to the role of historical extra, is speaking out and redefining the terms of the narrative.
Geopolitically, this commemoration will mark the shift from a unipolar world to a polycentric one. The SCO, BRICS+, the African Union, and regional alliances will be represented by their most prominent figures, in a spirit of strategic convergence. The West, obsessed with its sanctions, norms, and dogmas, will miss the opportunity to engage with the new powers. This diplomatic vacuum will be interpreted as an admission of weakness, or even an inability to adapt to the reality of the 21st century.
In short, while Beijing is writing history, the West is correcting spelling mistakes in its press releases.
The Tianjin declaration will tell us a lot!
Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences, Pan-African University
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