Xi’s empire: the Chinese leader celebrates his China

TOKYO. Red flags and colored smoke bombs above Tiananmen Square, while 56 cannons unloaded as many cannon fire as a symbol of the unity of China’s 56 ethnic groups (including Muslim Uyghurs). All while dozens of helicopters and military jets in formation flew over the skies of Beijing and below seventy thousand silently awaited the leader’s words.

And you could already guess the bellicose rhetoric of Xi Jinping that would follow for the occasion, that is the celebrations for the hundred years of the Chinese Communist Party.