The anniversary is meant to showcase China’s extraordinary rise from the ravages of war and famine to a modern, powerful nation state whose economic and military muscle is viewed by many with increasing concern

STUDENTS perform Anhui Opera at Daning Theater in Shanghai on Sunday to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. XINHUA

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China marks 70 years of Communist rule next week, with a massive military parade in Beijing anchoring celebrations of its emergence as a global superpower, despite a damaging year of trade tensions with the US and pro-democracy unrest in Hong Kong.

The anniversary is meant to showcase China’s extraordinary rise from the ravages of war and famine to a modern, powerful nation state whose economic and military muscle is viewed by many with increasing concern.

This stunning transformation radically altered the social and physical landscape as hundreds of millions of rural Chinese poured into booming cities to power the “factory of the world” into the globe’s second largest economy.

Tuesday’s military procession across Tiananmen Square will showcase the army’s most advanced weaponry, including 160 aircraft, in a bid to drum up patriotic fervor and support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with President Xi Jinping at the center.

But the planned narrative has been disrupted by months of unrest in Hong Kong, a painful US trade war, international criticism of human rights abuses against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, and soaring food prices.

Security has been ramped up ahead of the parade, with facial recognition, ID checks and searches for those entering Beijing by car, toy weapon sales banned and flying kites forbidden.

Roads have closed on weekend evenings for tanks to roll through in rehearsal. Fighter planes have roared in formation overhead.

Hundreds of thousands of government workers and students have been marching in practice, a participant telling the state-run Global Times they were given adult diapers as there was no time to take toilet breaks.

It hasn’t been a smooth 70 years since Chairman Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949.

The Party promised to serve a people worn down by years of poverty, a brutal war with Japan and civil war.

Mao implemented years of reform, collectivizing farmland and rapidly reworking social and economic structures.

After Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping started a period of opening up and economic reform, leading to breakneck growth and development.