On September 3rd, 2025, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held a military parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The parade marked the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II and was attended by over 25 world leaders. The meticulously choreographed spectacle, marked by ceremonial grandeur, featured march-pasts by highly synchronized columns of the PLA’s services and arms, carefully calibrated to convey a statement of discipline and professionalism. However, beyond pageantry, the carefully structured march-pasts and display of dozens of cutting-edge weapon systems — in conformity with the PLA’s doctrinal priorities — were a deliberate deterrence signaling exercise, providing noteworthy clues about China’s evolving military posture.
Drawing lessons from the revolutionary effects of Information Technology on warfare during the First Gulf War, China in 1993 introduced a landmark military strategy, which accentuated the application of “high-technology” in warfighting and prompted a shift towards joint operations. In addition, for the first time since the establishment of the PLA, the doctrinal objectives were redefined from ensuring territorial defense to prevailing in a potential conflict over Taiwan.
One year after President Xi Jinping assumed office, China adopted the 2014 military strategy, setting in motion landmark structural and organizational reforms in the PLA. The 2014 strategy carried some elements from 1993 and subsequent 2004 strategies, and also featured several important changes. It emphasized “winning informatized local wars” and likely expanded the theatre of operations to include additional parts of the Western Pacific. Most importantly, the strategy designated “informatization” — integration of C4ISR to collect, process, and utilize information from all domains of warfare and seamlessly linking individual platforms from across the services toward a network-centric operational structure to gain battlefield advantage — as the dominant character of warfare.
In 2017, President Xi set a three-phased goal for the PLA: 1) basically achieving mechanization by 2020; 2) modernizing national defense and military by 2035; 3) transforming the PLA into a “world-class” force by the mid-21st century. Subsequently, in 2019, China adopted a military strategy for a “new era”, which is essentially a “rebranding” of the 2014 strategy but incorporates the strategic thought of President Xi and reiterates emphasis on information dominance and precision strikes through integrated joint operations. Most importantly, the strategy set the stage for the next phase of modernization: “intelligentization”, i.e., military application of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, unmanned systems, hypersonic technologies, nanotechnology, and biotechnology.
In November 2020, the spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Defense announced that the PLA had “basically achieved mechanization” and made “significant progress” towards informatization. While underscoring the evolution in warfare, the spokesperson declared that China will “accelerate the integrated development of a mechanized, informatized, and intelligent military” by 2027.
Against the backdrop, the 80th Victory Day parade attained unparalleled significance to assess the progress on China’s military modernization and evaluate the overall military posture.
During the parade, the PLA debuted three new specialized arms — Aerospace Force, Cyberspace Force, and Information Support Force — which were created in 2024 after the dissolution of the Strategic Support Force. In addition, the equipment used by the Cyberspace Formation, Electronic Countermeasures Formation, and Information Support Formation — which together formed the Information Warfare Group — was also displayed. In effect, the specialized PLA arms equipped with cutting-edge information support and countermeasures platforms, supplemented by AWACS and special purpose aircraft, are geared towards ensuring information dominance on the battlefield, i.e., enabling the unhindered flow, collection, processing, and utilization of information from all domains of warfare to carry out joint operations while disrupting the adversary’s networks to deny it the corresponding advantage. This demonstrates that not only has the PLA achieved significant proficiency in conducting operations in the individual technologically intensive domains, but it is also growing increasingly confident about the achieved scale of informatization to prevail in multi-domain operations.
Most importantly, the parade featured intelligent tanks and fighting vehicles, and a specialized unmanned combat group comprising unmanned land, air, and sea-based platforms. In addition to land-based military robots capable of reconnaissance, assaults, and bomb disposal, considerably large Unmanned Underwater Vehicles — HSU 100 and AJX002 — were displayed, which are claimed to be capable of “independent identification”. The biggest highlight was the Unmanned Aerial Combat formation, comprising reconnaissance and strike drones, fixed-wing planes, air-dominance aircraft, and carrier-borne helicopters. Almost the size of a manned aircraft and believed to be equally capable, the fixed-wing and air-dominance aircraft with stealth characteristics are claimed to be capable of coordinated combat with manned aircraft, epitomizing the concept of “Loyal Wingman”. The display of a vast range of autonomous weapon platforms for multiple domains underscores that China is simultaneously making progress towards the next phase of modernization: intelligentization.
China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities — a combination of missiles, early warning systems, sensors, guidance platforms, and other relevant technologies to deny freedom of action to any hostile power off its shores — already posed a daunting challenge to the US post-WWII military dominance of the Western Pacific. The display of advanced missile systems — most notably anti-ship hypersonic missiles — next-generation early warning radars (which would be augmented by space-based sensors), electronic warfare, and jamming capabilities reveals that China has taken noteworthy strides in advancing its A2/AD capabilities. Whether, in the event of a war in the Western Pacific, the current A2/AD capabilities would enable China to create an exclusion zone remains debatable. However, it is becoming abundantly clear that China is rapidly closing the capability gap, leading to the steady erosion of the US military advantage in the Western Pacific.
For the first time, China displayed the complete triad of its nuclear delivery means: JL-1 air-launched long-range missile, JL-3 submarine-launched missile, and land-based DF-61 and DF-31DJ. Importantly, the latest missile in the DF-5 series, i.e., DF-5C, was displayed for the first time, which is believed to have a range of more than 20,000 km, making it capable of hitting targets anywhere in the world. The elaborate display of the nuclear triad demonstrates that the claims about modernization and expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal may not be altogether unfounded. Importantly, the display of only intercontinental-range missiles as strategic delivery means suggests that Beijing does not perceive a role for its nuclear capabilities in regional conflicts. Instead, it implies that China might be amenable to a strategy of deterring any US intervention in a potential conflict in the Western Pacific by leveraging the vulnerability of the US mainland.
Finally, yet importantly, the parade provided vivid indicators about the vast capacity of China’s military-industrial complex and the scope of its military-technological complex, which are underpinned by Beijing’s huge manufacturing base and years of strategic investments in advanced technologies. China’s military-industrial and military-technological bases enable it to speedily manufacture and field advanced military systems in multiple domains at a scale unmatched by any of its global counterparts. Apart from the advantage in capacity to produce huge numbers, China has rapidly transitioned from relying on reverse engineering to becoming a leading innovator in the production of cutting-edge technologies with military applications, including hypersonic weapons, unmanned systems, directed energy weapons, and quantum technologies. The paradigm shift marks a departure from China’s erstwhile status as a technological imitator to becoming the leading producer of next-generation military technologies.
To summarize, China’s 80th Victory Day parade wasn’t just a ceremonial display, but a case of deterrence signaling, which provides important clues about China’s evolving military posture. The carefully choreographed display of advanced military technologies across multiple warfighting domains demonstrates a high degree of operational integration, accentuating the PLA’s giant leaps towards the “new era” of warfare characterized by information dominance and autonomy. The display of several unmanned systems, leading-edge missile technologies, and advanced information warfare capabilities accentuates the advancement of China’s military-industrial complex, which now rivals and, in selected domains, might have surpassed traditional defense innovators. Moving forward, China’s military posture would remain among the most defining factors shaping the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific, thus having broad consequences for 21st-century great power competition.
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