Former Prime Ministers Sir John Key and Helen Clark have appeared at a military parade hosted by China, also attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The duo, former political rivals, arrived at the parade in Beijing together – both shaking hands and taking photos with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Among other leaders who attended were Putin, Kim, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko, and Myanmar's acting president Min Aung Hlaing.
Responding to criticism of her attendance, Clark told The Post she had paid her own way to Beijing, and said accepting the invitation was "really a line call".
Clark said she had anticipated the kind of world leaders who would be in attendance.
“I think engagement with China as our major trade partner is very important, while obviously acknowledging that we have significant differences in political systems,” Clark said.
“Yes, there are some guests there who are not the ones we would invite to our country. But on the other hand, as I say, there's a range of guests there that are friends of New Zealand, as it were, for example, the Malaysian prime minister.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Key and Clark attended the event in a "private capacity".
The parade was held to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II for China.
Xi and his invited guests arrived earlier at the historic Tiananmen Gate to watch the parade. Xi shook hands individually with guests on a red carpet before they climbed the stairs up to the viewing platform overlooking Tiananmen Square.
Putin and Kim flanked Xi as they made their way to the platform. They paused to shake hands with five WWII veterans, some older than 100.
As the parade got underway, US President Donald Trump said on social media a big question was whether Xi would recognise the contributions of Americans who fought in the war.
He added: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”
Domestically, the commemoration of the anniversary is a way to show how far China has come. China was a major front in the war, a fact often overlooked in accounts that focused more on the fight for Europe and US naval battles in the Pacific. The Japanese invasion before the war and the conflict itself killed millions of Chinese people.
The military parade was also a show of strength to boost support for the Communist Party and its leader, Xi, and a way to portray itself as a global alternative to the American-dominated post-war era.
– additional reporting from Associated Press
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