As the world watched the impressive display of Chinese armed forces parade through Tiananmen Square on September 3, thoughts turned to the person in charge of it all.

Who are we dealing with?  Is this a replay of the Nuremberg Rally of 1934, orchestrated by Adolf Hitler, that was a preparation for war? Or is it a warning by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to potential adversaries, such as the United States, not to underestimate the capabilities of China?

Xi, now 72, is the son of a mid-level CCP member who was purged when Xi was a teenager. Sent to a remote area, the family was reduced to life in a yaodong — an earthen structure not unlike a cave. Despite this adversity, young Xi was accepted as a worker-peasant-soldier student and studied chemical engineering and law.

However, his real ambition was a career in the CCP. Starting as a party secretary in a small province, he rose through the party hierarchy to membership in the Politburo in 2007 and elevation to General Secretary in 2012.

He frequently recounts the Century of Humiliation suffered by China from European colonization and wars with Japan, including the invasion that began in 1937, which claimed tens of millions of lives. He vows that this will never happen again.

For the world's remaining uninitiated who still have the obsolete illusion of China as a country of bamboo and straw, the Tiananmen Square review of advanced armed forces on parade dispelled any doubt about China's current power.

Ten thousand troops of the People's Liberation Army and Navy, including units of its cyber-space command, marched past a review of senior representatives from 26 nations — from Turkey in the west, through Iran, Russia, the -stans of southern Asia, to North Korea in the east.

Hypersonic weapons, drones of various capabilities, laser-powered air defense systems, and air, surface, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles rolled past the reviewing stand where Xi was flanked by Putin of Russia and Kim of North Korea.

Overhead, the J-35A jet fighters swept by as an answer to the F-35 in the US arsenal. A Navy variant of the J-35 is forthcoming for the expanding carrier force. The Chinese Navy has expanded rapidly in recent years, made possible by four major shipyards that have produced a fleet now rivaling the US Navy. A new laser-armed air defense cruiser, the LY-1, is designed to defend against carrier aircraft and attacking drones.