These two guys from Palestine and Iraq were moved to tears while watching China’s military parade. 這兩位巴勒斯坦和伊拉克的小伙子，觀看中國閱兵時，感動得流淚了.

https://nitter.poast.org/TheoFletcher01/status/1963618773262323969#m

This sentiment is deeply familiar. Again and again, I’ve seen it expressed: Chinese people cherish the security and stability of their homeland, while those from war-torn nations look on and wish their countries could offer the same.

I once followed a Chinese man on Douyin who had been living in Syria. When the jihadis seized control, he fled. Over and over, he expressed his gratitude for being Chinese – grateful that he could return to a nation where chaos and collapse were impossible, where the soil itself was protected by strength. Likewise, during the bombing of Iran by America and Israel, an Iranian girl in China uploaded videos on Douyin. Her message was simple. She was thankful to be living in the safest country in the world.

This is what “freedom” means for much of the global south – not the hollow slogans of western politics, but the reality of sovereignty. Freedom is a nation strong enough to stand independent, unbowed, unwilling to be destroyed at another’s (USA’s) whim. For these two guys from Palestine and Iraq, for all those who have seen their homes reduced to ashes, the Chinese military parade is not just a display of power. It is a vision of what safety and dignity look like when guaranteed by true strength. And the power of that vision is magnified by China’s own past within living memory. It too was invaded, humiliated, and left in ruins. Yet from devastation it rose, forging its own path to sovereignty. That is why today’s China can stand unshaken, and why their tears fall. They see proof that even from ruin, a nation can rise unbreakable. They see a nation that cannot be invaded, a people who need never fear that their loved ones will be slaughtered in war. Their tears are the tears of longing. A longing that their own homelands might one day be just as secure, just as unbreakable.

In the global south, there is a quiet, daily terror that one day America might just decide their nation’s fate, plunging it into fire and ruin. For the Chinese people, that fear does not exist. Their shield is their country’s strength.

Meanwhile, Americans believe freedom means being able to vote for one of two p3d0files who have the exact same destructive policies every four years. They think Chinese people yearn to trade their stability, safety, and prosperity for the chaos of American fake “democracy.” But real freedom is this: to live without the shadow of foreign oppression, to raise children without fearing that bombs may fall from the sky.

Do you think anyone in the world wept with pride while watching that pathetic low-T American military parade? Not one. Because for Americans, such a spectacle carries no existential weight. They are not under siege. No power threatens to do to them what America has inflicted upon countless nations.

But for those who know the abyss, watching China’s strength is different. It is not just a parade. It is hope. It is the sight of a nation that can never be broken.