China marks WWII victory

China held a lavish parade in Beijing to mark the defeat of Japan in World War Two, showcasing its military might on an unprecedented scale.

In his opening speech, President Xi Jinping paid tribute to "the Chinese people who unwaveringly fought hard and defeated aggression" from Japan.

He also said the People's Liberation Army would be reduced by 300,000 personnel, but gave no timeframe.

China's growing military power is being keenly watched amid regional tensions.

China has several territorial disputes with neighbours in the South China Sea, as well as with Japan in the East China Sea.

Ahead of the parade, the US said five Chinese ships had been spotted in the Bering Sea off Alaska for the first time.

More than 12,000 troops, mostly Chinese but with contingents from Russia and elsewhere, marched through Beijing's central Tiananmen Square from 10am.

They were accompanied by a range of ballistic missiles, tanks and armoured vehicles, many never seen in public before, as advanced fighter jets and bombers flew overhead.

For Xi, who presided over China's biggest event of the year, the parade was a welcome distraction from the country's plunging stock markets, slowing economy and recent blasts at a chemical warehouse that killed 145 people.

Xi was joined by Russian President Vladimir Putin and leaders of several other nations with close ties to China, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Most Western leaders rebuffed invitations to attend, diplomats told the Reuters news agency, unhappy about the guest list and wary of the message China is sending to a region already rattled by its military assertiveness, especially in the South China Sea.

On the eve of the event, Xi said Japanese invaders before and during World War II behaved with barbarity and tried to slaughter the Chinese people into surrender.

The Chinese government has repeatedly said the parade is not aimed at today's Japan, but to remember the past and to remind the world of China's huge sacrifices during the conflict. However, it rarely misses an opportunity to draw attention to Japan's wartime role.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not attending the event, which is being held one day after the 70th anniversary of Tokyo's surrender in World War II.

"For decades, when people in Western countries talk about World War II, they usually refer to the battles on the European continent and have little knowledge about China's role as the major oriental theatre of the war," state news agency Xinhua said in an English-language commentary this week.