When Vladimir Putin joined Xi Jinping last week for a massive military parade in Beijing, the geopolitical message wasn’t exactly subtle. Ostensibly, the parade was a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II. But Xi’s decision to invite the leaders of Russia, North Korea, and Iran, while snubbing the United States, Britain, and France, made clear that he is thinking more about future alliances than historic ones.
As is often the case with carefully stage-managed propaganda events, the most revealing moment happened by accident. Chinese TV cameras picked up a conversation between Xi and Putin as they walked to the reviewing stand, in which they talked about the prospect of technology making human beings immortal. “There’ll be constant transplants of human organs, and maybe even people will grow younger as they age—even achieving immortality,” said Putin, 72, through a translator. “It could be that in this century humans might be able to live to 150 years old,” replied Xi, also 72.
Coming from Silicon Valley billionaires, such an exchange would be unremarkable. The idea that technology will soon be able to abolish death has been mainstream in technofuturist circles for decades. Still, there is something clarifying about hearing aging tyrants talk about the allure of immortality.