Overview

• Some 40,000 troops and civilians are set to march through Hanoi on Tuesday, with tanks, drones, missile batteries and aircraft flyovers planned at daybreak.
• Vietnam’s top leader To Lam will address the event, with delegations from China and Russia expected and their troops scheduled to march alongside Vietnamese forces.
• China’s Zhao Leji, former Cambodian leader Hun Sen and Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel are slated to attend, and crowds in the hundreds of thousands are anticipated.
• Organizers expect the display to outsize April’s 50th‑anniversary events and surpass the one‑party state’s 1985 show of force that drew 30,000 participants.
• Coverage notes enduring French influences in architecture and food even as only about 400 students chose French for graduation exams this year versus 358,000 for English and 4,400 for Chinese, with the French embassy reporting 63,000 people enrolled in French classes and Macron’s May visit yielding roughly $10 billion in deals.