A number of world leaders gathered in Beijing at a second world war commemoration parade on Wednesday, in a display designed to show off China’s military strength and geopolitical might. The presence of leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un at the event has led to some western political and economic analysts describing it as a meeting of the “axis of upheaval”.
After the parade, Russian state agency Sputnik released a group photo, featuring some expected – and unexpected – faces. Here’s who’s who.
From bottom left:
1: Prabowo Subianto, the president of Indonesia. Prabowo travelled to China amid fierce protests at home over perks for lawmakers. Critics say the former general is overseeing a quiet creep of the military into civilian affairs, echoing the country’s authoritarian past.
2: Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation. Putin has hailed Russia’s “unprecedentedly” high level of ties with China, with booming trade between the two countries an economic lifeline for Moscow since the start of the war in Ukraine.
3: Xi Jinping, the president of China. Before the parade, Xi hosted dozens of leaders at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin this week, in a push to elevate groups dominated by the global south over EU and US-led groups such as Nato.
4: Peng Liyuan, the first lady of China.
5: Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea. Kim’s attendance at the military parade is only his second reported trip abroad in six years, and the first time he has been seen with Xi and Putin at the same event.
6: Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan. In 2022 Tokayev said he had personally ordered security forces and the army to “open fire with lethal force” against protesters demonstrating against corruption and inequality.
7: Zahra Pezeshkian, the Iranian president’s daughter. Pezeshkian formerly worked as a chemist in the petrochemical industry and often travels with her widower father.
8: Masoud Pezeshkian, the president of Iran. Elected on a comparatively moderate platform on issues including women and minority group rights, Pezeshkian has presided over the escalation of the Iran-Israel war and increasing tensions with the US.
9: Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the president of Turkmenistan. The son of former autocrat leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has pledged to maintain his father’s neutral status in international affairs. One of the world’s most tightly controlled countries, Turkmenistan is heavily reliant on resource exports to China and Russia.
10: Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan. Last month Aliyev signed a deal with Armenia at the White House to end the two countries’ four-decade conflict, which included the creation of a transit corridor named the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity”.
11: Mehriban Aliyeva, the vice-president and first lady of Azerbaijan. Western observers say the Aliyev regime has imprisoned journalists, committed human rights abuses and allowed looting of state assets by public officials.
12: Alparslan Bayraktar, the Turkish energy and natural resources minister.
13: Li Junhua, the UN undersecretary general for economic and social affairs.
14: Hakan Fidan, the Turkish foreign affairs minister. In a meeting with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan earlier in the week, Xi said China and Turkey should strengthen cooperation in the area of counter-terrorism, according to Chinese state media.
15: Dana Nǎstase, the former first lady of Romania. Nǎstase and her husband were sentenced to prison in 2014 on charges relating to blackmailing Romanian officials to receive various goods from China.
16: Celso Amorim, the chief foreign policy adviser to the Brazilian president. As foreign affairs minister in Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first administration, Amorim pushed for a peace deal between the US and Iran.
17: Adrian Nǎstase, the former prime minister of Romania. Despite his later imprisonment, Năstase’s tenure is regarded by some observers as paving the way for Romania’s entry into Nato and the EU.
18: Marcos Galvão. Brazil’s ambassador to China was previously foreign affairs minister and ambassador to the EU.
19: Viorica Dǎncilǎ, the former prime minister of Romania. Elected in 2018, she was the first woman to hold the position.
20: Haszaimi Bol Hassan, the commander of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces. The small south-east Asian country sparked an outcry when it announced in 2019 sodomy, adultery and rape would be punished with death, including by stoning.
21: Daniel Andrews, the former premier of Victoria. Andrews made headlines when he signed the state up for China’s Belt and Road development initiative in 2018 – a move that was vetoed by the then Morrison government. Andrews now runs a consulting firm and is patron of Labor Friends of Israel.
22: Laureano Facundo Ortega Murillo. The son of Nicaragua’s authoritarian leader, Daniel Ortega, leads his country’s relations with China, Russia and Iran. Human Rights Watch has described the Ortega regime’s brutal crackdown on opponents as turning Nicaragua into “the western hemisphere’s equivalent of North Korea”.
The full shot of the group, released by North Korean state news agency KCNA on Thursday, shows even more leaders – including the former New Zealand prime ministers John Key and Helen Clark, as well as the leaders of Malaysia, Belarus, Myanmar’s military junta, Cambodia, Cuba, Slovakia, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and several others.
