Military parade becoming an increasingly sensitive issue between China and Japan

India is finding itself weighing a delicate diplomatic balancing act as it decides on a request from China to send a high-level military delegation for a landmark military parade that Beijing is hosting on September 3.

New Delhi is yet to take a call on China’s overture, according to sources, with the military parade becoming an increasingly sensitive issue in already thorny relations between China and Japan.

While the parade is being held to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War as well as China’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, diplomats say it has taken on a political hue as tensions simmer between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea and unresolved questions over wartime history.

Wartime atrocities committed by Japanese forces remain a sensitive issue in both China and South Korea.

China has asked India to send high-level representation as well as a military contingent of 75 troops to take part in what will be a grand parade on Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing.

The view in Beijing is that the level of representation from invited countries including India will be an indication of how countries are positioning themselves amid China-Japan tensions.

Sources told India Today that Japan’s concerns about the parade would be a factor in India’s decision-making.

Both Beijing and Tokyo have accused the other of politicising the event.

Beijing says many countries, from those in the West to Russia, have held events to mark the end of the Second World War and it is being unfairly criticised for hosting what will be a rare parade in Beijing involving foreign forces.

Yet the view in Tokyo is that China is using the occasion to highlight wartime atrocities, attempt to draw a link between on-going maritime differences and Japan’s militaristic past, and inflame regional concerns.

The Presidents of Russia, Mongolia, Egypt and the Czech Republic have so far confirmed attendance.

The US has been weighing its options. Whether the US will dispatch an envoy to attend the parade and the rank of this envoy will reflect to what degree the US sees the event as a political gesture from China to deter Japan, leading strategic expert Jia Qingguo, Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, told the Party-run Global Times on Monday.

Japanese media reports said on Monday that the U.S. had requested South Korean President Park Geun-hye to not attend the event. The reports were, however, denied by Seoul, which has also been critical of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government for its attitude on issues of wartime history. Abe is unlikely to attend the parade, but may visit Beijing shortly after the commemoration.

China wishes for more foreign leaders to come, a Monday editorial in the Global Times said. “But it doesn’t matter if there will be fewer turning out. China won’t feel uncomfortable if fewer foreign leaders attend than expected, but if a lot show up, we can imagine how heart-broken Tokyo will feel.

Source from India Defence News.