CHINA celebrated the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism in the Far East with a mass military parade yesterday.

Ten formations of soldiers marched through Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in honour of 10 heroic units that fought in the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-1945.

One commemorated the five heroes of Mount Langya, who threw themselves off a cliff rather than surrender to encircling Japanese troops after holding off an offensive in September 1941.

Another paid tribute to a company of troops who used their bayonets to repel a Japanese attack during the communist-led Hundred-Regiment Campaign of 1940.

The latest Chinese military hardware was on display, including tanks, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and “aircraft carrier-killing” DF-21D anti-ship missiles.

Hundreds of aircraft flew in formation overhead, including a squadron of helicopters forming the number 70.

But, in his speech, President Xi Jinping said the People’s Liberation Army would cut its number of troops by 300,000 to around two million.

The army has already shrunk by almost two million since 1985, although advanced weaponry may multiply its effectiveness.

Mr Xi said the armed forces would continue to “uphold the sacred task of ensuring world peace.”

While Western and Japanese leaders stayed away, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma and South Korea’s Park Geun Hye attended, along with United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki Moon.

Cuban First Vice-President Miguel Diaz and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir represented their nations.

The United Front between Mao Zedong’s communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists stood alone against imperial Japan for more than four years years until the Pearl Harbour attack in December 1941 gave the catalyst for the Allies to enter the war in the east.

Chinese resistance pinned down 1.5 million Japanese troops, some 60 per cent of the imperial Japanese army, killing half a million of them.

In turn, Japan’s genocidal campaigns left 35 million Chinese dead, half the casualties of the second world war.

But the ultimate victory of 1945 also led to the end of British and US imperialism in China and the communist revolution of 1949.