North Korea is preparing to stage what could be one of its biggest military parades, an event that will highlight the shifting balance of power in Pyongyang and provide an occasion for high-level talks with China.

Preparations for Saturday’s event to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ party of Korea, have involved the deployment of about 600 trucks and 200 armoured vehicles to a practice ground in eastern Pyongyang, according to satellite photography analysis by Joseph Bermudez, co-founder of AllSource Analysis.

The event will reflect the renewed prominence acquired by the ruling party during the four-year reign of supreme leader Kim Jong Un, whose father, Kim Jong Il, had cultivated the military as his primary instrument of power.