France, Sept. 3 -- China staged its largest-ever military parade in Beijing on Wednesday to mark 80 years since Japan's surrender in the Second World War. President Xi Jinping stood in Tiananmen Square flanked by Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong-un-a spectacle designed to show military power and political unity against the West.

The three men walked together down a red carpet in unprecedented scenes, Xi shaking their hands before inspecting massed troops and weaponry from an open-top limousine along Beijing's Chang'an Avenue.

The state broadcast showed tanks, stealth jets, missiles and drones rolling past the tribunes as music and choreography celebrated what China described as an "epic of resistance".

"Our worl...