China’s full military might was on display in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square where thousands of troops marched in parade.

“It really is difficult to understate how much of this is a part of the national psyche, the psyche of the Communist Party that in the previous 100 years [before World War II], China was repressed invaded and humiliated by foreign forces,” Al Jazeera’s correspondent Katrina Yu said from Beijing.

“I think Xi Jinping making a point there that that will never happen again,” Yu said.