The history of communist rule in China is marked by well-documented incidents of repression, cruelty, acts of unprovoked aggression against independent nations such as Tibet, costly foreign wars including the Korean conflict and a sublime indifference to the value of human life that, on occasion, has beggared belief.

As many as 10 million people, the majority of whom were non-combatants, are believed to have been killed during the decades long civil war that bought Mao Tseng, the legendary leader whose iconic portrait dominated Tiananmen Square during Tuesday's celebrations, and his supporters to power.

The bloodiest tyrant to emerge from what historians are now calling "the century of violence", Mao and his cadres presided over the deaths of tens of millions of people while declaring war on the cultural traditions of millennia and bringing the country to the verge of economic and social collapse.

Given at least 30 million people are believed to have died during the "Great Leap Forward", the man-made famine engineered by the communists between 1958 and 1962, alone, it seems fair to say China's self-imposed half-century of horror and holocaust far exceeds anything in Germany or Stalin's Russia.

While Mao is venerated as the leader who liberated the nation from the Japanese yoke and drove the last of the imperialists into the sea, the truth is that he and his cadres spent far more time fighting other Chinese than they ever did in combat against Japan.

It speaks volumes about Xi Jinping's regime, which is trying to impose its will on the people of Hong Kong and stands accused of buying influence across the globe, spying on nations such as Australia, the US and the UK, and meddling in this country's politics, that it will go to almost any lengths to manipulate the historical record.

The state control apparatus in use in China today, which includes the manipulation of the internet, the persecution and detention of religious minorities, the relentless suppression of dissident voices, and the widespread use of facial recognition technology, would do George Orwell's "Big Brother" proud. "Double speak" rules supreme.

Tuesday's opulent and over the top demonstration of military might in Tiananmen Square was straight out of the militarist dictator's playbook and trumps anything ever seen on the streets of Moscow or Pyongyang.

Claims the display, which featured Beijing's latest super weapons including a ballistic missile allegedly capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the continental US in 30 minutes, was not intended to spread fear amongst China's neighbours have to be taken with an enormous grain of salt.

Xi has chosen this moment, when tensions with the west are greater than they have ever been since the nation opened up to the world 40 years ago, to reveal the steel fist within the mailed glove.

This crude attempt at shock and awe may actually backfire on the Chinese president and his minions and advisors.

The more the Middle Kingdom splashes out on toys for the boys and girls of the People's Liberation Army the harder it becomes to maintain the fiction China is a developing economy.

ICBMs, nuclear submarines and supersonic drones don't come cheap. If there are still, as China apologists in this country have recently argued, large numbers of Chinese still living in poverty, then maybe, just maybe, the spending choices of the ruling regime are what is to blame.

If China can afford this ostentatious display of military might then perhaps, as Scott Morrison has suggested, the time has come for it to compete on a level playing field economically and to start cutting its carbon dioxide emissions rather than being allowed to increase them until 2030 at the earliest.