https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/03/china-military-parade-technology-pla-weapons/ China’s Military Is Now Leading It is now widely accepted that the story Western countries once told themselves about China’s technological development—it is a mere imitator of Western technology; it steals intellectual property; its successes result from wasteful public subsidies—is inadequate. This story still has some elements of truth, but it is much less true than it used to be. China is today an innovator and technological leader in robotics, electric vehicles, nuclear reactors, solar energy, drones, high-speed rail, and AI. If confirmation were needed, the Sept. 3 military parade through Beijing confirms that we must add military technology to this list. It is no longer enough to say that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is catching up or that it is copying foreign military equipment designs. China is now innovating, and it is leading. In the process, the regional military balance that has for decades favored the United States and its partners is being irrevocably changed.
By Sam Roggeveen|Sep. 3rd, 2025 It is now widely accepted that the story Western countries once told themselves about China’s technological development—it is a mere imitator of Western technology; it steals intellectual property; its successes result from wasteful public subsidies—is inadequate. This story still has some elements of truth, but it is much less true than it used to be. China is today an innovator and technological leader in robotics, electric vehicles, nuclear reactors, solar energy, drones, high-speed rail, and AI. If confirmation were needed, the Sept. 3 military parade through Beijing confirms that we must add military technology to this list. It is no longer enough to say that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is catching up or that it is copying foreign military equipment designs. China is now innovating, and it is leading. In the process, the regional military balance that has for decades favored the United States and its partners is being irrevocably changed. The Victory Day Parade, marking the 80th anniversary of “the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the world anti-fascist war,” was a showcase for China’s contemporary military might and a peek into its future. China used to be reluctant to display its latest military equipment, but the shroud was lifted—if selectively—for this event. Among the highlights was the display of aircraft that will serve aboard China’s growing fleet of aircraft carriers, which numbers three ships at present but is likely to be joined in coming years by at least one nuclear-powered supercarrier, just as large and capable as the U.S. Navy’s new Gerald Ford class. Four new types of “loyal wingman” drones were unveiled—stealthy unpiloted planes designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft and be tasked by them. And at least four previously unseen anti-ship and ground-attack missile systems were on display, as well as a new uncrewed submarine and new torpedoes. The parade provided just the latest revelations in a frantic year for observers of China’s military-industrial complex. Just after Christmas in 2024, grainy video and photos began to appear on social media of two new stealthy combat aircraft in test flights. A few weeks later, Naval News reported that China was constructing a unique type of powered barge with extendable road bridges that could allow vehicle-carrying ships to unload their cargo at an unprepared coastal site. Subsequent photos of the barges in testing confirmed that they would be ideally suited to putting heavy armor ashore in an invasion of Taiwan. Then, in late January, the Financial Times published commercial satellite photos showing that China was constructing a new military command center outside Beijing that is at least 10 times the size of the Pentagon. In May, Pakistan and India staged an aerial battle involving 125 aircraft over disputed Kashmir; Pakistan’s air force used Chinese equipment that appeared, on limited evidence, to have performed credibly. China shows every indication of wanting a fully home-grown military-industrial complex. And China’s leadership has publicly stated its ambition to build a worldwide first-class military by the middle of the century. Of course, that requires more than just technology, and the recent rash of senior officer purges suggests that there are serious corruption and performance problems in the PLA. But on the technological front, at least, there has long been ample evidence of ambition. China began its modernization in the early 1990s, and since then, the PLA has undergone arguably the most rapid technological transformation of any military force since World War II. The revelations since December 2024 only reinforce this trend and should prompt the question of whether China’s ambitions are still being underestimated. The bigger question is, what does China want with all that military power? One possibility is that it is building a force to directly challenge the United States with a truly global military posture. Distant Australia got a taste of China’s new capabilities in February when the PLA Navy sent a flotilla of warships to circumnavigate the continent. It sent a message that China’s military power now has new reach. Yet if there is a broad conclusion to be drawn from the revelations of the past nine months, it is that China is not solely or even primarily focused on projecting its military power around the Pacific, much less the world. Much of the new equipment we are seeing is not explicitly designed for that purpose. Of course, such equipment can be put to many uses. And there is no question that over the last few decades, China has substantially grown its capacity to use military power over long distances. It is building a formidable fleet of strategic airlifters, allowing it to fly personnel and equipment around the globe quickly. More recently, it has begun to grow its aerial refueling fleet; such a fleet has long been a key attribute of the United States’ ability to project air power globally. And China now has dozens of “blue water” warships designed to operate in the open ocean (as opposed to “brown water” coastal vessels), including aircraft carriers and replenishment ships to keep the fleet at sea. But then, consider that China has not added to the single overseas base it opened in Djibouti in 2017; it is years away from fielding a bomber with intercontinental range; and it has nothing like the global alliance network of the United States. The new fighter aircraft, landing barges, drones, and missile systems that have emerged this year don’t suggest an overwhelming focus on global power projection either. They will primarily strengthen China’s position in its neighborhood. The focus should therefore be on China’s regional ambitions rather than its global presence. That is particularly bad news for Taiwan, because the military balance there is clearly swinging further in Beijing’s favor. A recent paper in the most respected academic journal in strategic studies, International Security, examined the trend lines and offered some alarming conclusions for Taipei and for those in Washington who argue that the United States has a vital interest in defending Taiwan. In “Access Denied? The Sino-American Contest for Military Primacy in Asia,” Nicholas Anderson and Daryl Press argue that the lynchpin of U.S. military power in Asia—its combat aircraft based in Japan and Guam—would suffer catastrophic losses in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The paper develops a model of the damage that would be done to U.S. air bases by China’s large (and still growing) stocks of short- and medium-range missiles in the first 30 days of such a war. It concludes that even in the most favorable scenario, the United States would lose 45% of its force in that first month. And it is worth emphasizing that the paper looks only at the effects of Chinese missiles fired from land bases; it does not consider the effect of additional strikes from China’s air force and navy. Anderson and Press offer various suggestions for how the United States can correct this growing imbalance, though none seem particularly promising. Ultimately, they suggest that a more fundamental rethink of U.S. strategy could be in order. Washington should consider moving from a mindset of military dominance to one of being a supporting player in the region. “That a distant great power is the dominant military actor in East Asia may not be a long-term equilibrium, given the economic and technical might of other Asian countries,” the authors conclude. This is an understatement, especially when one considers how strange the world would look if the U.S. and Chinese roles were reversed. If China was the predominant power in the Western hemisphere, permanently garrisoning 70,000 troops in Canada and an aircraft carrier battle group in Cuba, that would indeed look very far from a “long-term equilibrium.” To address the deteriorating military balance in East Asia, the United States could massively expand its presence there, yet there seems little prospect of it. China has been modernizing its military for over 30 years now, without a substantial U.S. response. Why would we expect that to change now? And even if Washington could overcome its inertia, which Asian country would agree to host all these forces, and which would offer the U.S. a guarantee that it would allow its territory to be used in a war against China? Finally, if those barriers were overcome, China would almost certainly respond with increased military spending of its own. And as the military parade in Beijing reminded the world this week, an arms race would now play to Beijing’s strengths, not to Washington’s. A new equilibrium is indeed taking shape; U.S. military strategy and foreign policy must follow.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/03/china-military-parade-technology-pla-weapons/
China’s Military Is Now Leading
It is now widely accepted that the story Western countries once told themselves about China’s technological development—it is a mere imitator of Western technology; it steals intellectual property; its successes result from wasteful public subsidies—is inadequate. This story still has some elements of truth, but it is much less true than it used to be. China is today an innovator and technological leader in robotics, electric vehicles, nuclear reactors, solar energy, drones, high-speed rail, and AI.
If confirmation were needed, the Sept. 3 military parade through Beijing confirms that we must add military technology to this list. It is no longer enough to say that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is catching up or that it is copying foreign military equipment designs. China is now innovating, and it is leading. In the process, the regional military balance that has for decades favored the United States and its partners is being irrevocably changed.
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https://www.youtube.com/embed/61YQoLX_YWA
实力决定地位
中国军队确实牛
据说这些还只是本来想拿出来的武器的50%
其实巴基斯坦用的飞机还是上了这次阅兵的，那几架喷彩烟的就是J10 ，反正在中国已经沦为氛围组 😂
没拿出来的更厉害
真给你们的伟大领袖丢脸啊，连这个杂志都没听说过。想必也不知道写文明的冲突的亨廷顿吧。没文化可以理解，但是大庭广众之下还要卖弄无知，可真够丢人显眼的。
这么著名的期刊都不知道？
哈哈哈印度人不知道什么感受
这就有点丢人了
八一飞行表演队的吧，这玩意一般不会换新机
2017年东风5C试射当时西方媒体就披露了，这都是8年前的事情了。搞不好东风5D，5E都有了
豹2，M1，都属于傻大粗笨的，不适应现代战争了
这个的确水平太低，这么著名的杂志居然不知道。
莫迪没来是对的，不然看着天空会有啪啪打脸的感脚。
这搞得坦克当作战中枢用？
作为无人作战集群压阵用？
好奇东风61的覆盖全球的数据是怎么得出来的。不是不相信啊，就是不太懂。
核弹射程对比地球直径算出来的啊，射程到南极还有多，并且可以巡航绕地球一周。真正的大杀器是东风5C。这次展示出来的东风61和5C肯定已经落后一两代了，最好的不会拿出来。中国人一贯谦虚。
你是说东风5C吧，传闻射程在18000-22000公里左右。只要射程18000就可以打遍全球了。因为地球最大周长40000公里，中国境内东西最长距离4500公里左右，所以只要射程18000公里，那么就覆盖全球了.你要是射程>=20000公里，那不就是随便打了
https://www.douyin.com/search/dongfeng5c?aid=187ca7d8-d62f-4d93-b5d5-804194802e03&modal_id=7545693685833387291&type=general
中国最高精尖的武器已经不是展示的这些了，而是在太空悬浮，是一直、永远在你头顶上的外太空轨道上跟卫星一样， 一旦激活或者收到指令， 直接垂直打击地面目标。没有任何防御系统，别说拦截了，就是跟踪都几乎不可能。
前面讲错了，压轴是5C，解说是覆盖全球。查了一下，这个是有实际测试的数据，美俄都证实了。2017年发射的，5D应该不远了。
5D不是不远，是肯定有了，不然不会展示5C。一般展示的都要落后至少两代
各类新型武器琳琅满目。某网红观感的标题叫“满满的真理”。
China’s Military Is Now Leading
By Sam Roggeveen|Sep. 3rd, 2025
It is now widely accepted that the story Western countries once told themselves about China’s technological development—it is a mere imitator of Western technology; it steals intellectual property; its successes result from wasteful public subsidies—is inadequate. This story still has some elements of truth, but it is much less true than it used to be. China is today an innovator and technological leader in robotics, electric vehicles, nuclear reactors, solar energy, drones, high-speed rail, and AI.
If confirmation were needed, the Sept. 3 military parade through Beijing confirms that we must add military technology to this list. It is no longer enough to say that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is catching up or that it is copying foreign military equipment designs. China is now innovating, and it is leading. In the process, the regional military balance that has for decades favored the United States and its partners is being irrevocably changed.
The Victory Day Parade, marking the 80th anniversary of “the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the world anti-fascist war,” was a showcase for China’s contemporary military might and a peek into its future. China used to be reluctant to display its latest military equipment, but the shroud was lifted—if selectively—for this event.
Among the highlights was the display of aircraft that will serve aboard China’s growing fleet of aircraft carriers, which numbers three ships at present but is likely to be joined in coming years by at least one nuclear-powered supercarrier, just as large and capable as the U.S. Navy’s new Gerald Ford class. Four new types of “loyal wingman” drones were unveiled—stealthy unpiloted planes designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft and be tasked by them. And at least four previously unseen anti-ship and ground-attack missile systems were on display, as well as a new uncrewed submarine and new torpedoes.
The parade provided just the latest revelations in a frantic year for observers of China’s military-industrial complex. Just after Christmas in 2024, grainy video and photos began to appear on social media of two new stealthy combat aircraft in test flights. A few weeks later, Naval News reported that China was constructing a unique type of powered barge with extendable road bridges that could allow vehicle-carrying ships to unload their cargo at an unprepared coastal site. Subsequent photos of the barges in testing confirmed that they would be ideally suited to putting heavy armor ashore in an invasion of Taiwan.
Then, in late January, the Financial Times published commercial satellite photos showing that China was constructing a new military command center outside Beijing that is at least 10 times the size of the Pentagon. In May, Pakistan and India staged an aerial battle involving 125 aircraft over disputed Kashmir; Pakistan’s air force used Chinese equipment that appeared, on limited evidence, to have performed credibly.
China shows every indication of wanting a fully home-grown military-industrial complex. And China’s leadership has publicly stated its ambition to build a worldwide first-class military by the middle of the century. Of course, that requires more than just technology, and the recent rash of senior officer purges suggests that there are serious corruption and performance problems in the PLA.
But on the technological front, at least, there has long been ample evidence of ambition. China began its modernization in the early 1990s, and since then, the PLA has undergone arguably the most rapid technological transformation of any military force since World War II. The revelations since December 2024 only reinforce this trend and should prompt the question of whether China’s ambitions are still being underestimated.
The bigger question is, what does China want with all that military power?
One possibility is that it is building a force to directly challenge the United States with a truly global military posture. Distant Australia got a taste of China’s new capabilities in February when the PLA Navy sent a flotilla of warships to circumnavigate the continent. It sent a message that China’s military power now has new reach.
Yet if there is a broad conclusion to be drawn from the revelations of the past nine months, it is that China is not solely or even primarily focused on projecting its military power around the Pacific, much less the world. Much of the new equipment we are seeing is not explicitly designed for that purpose.
Of course, such equipment can be put to many uses. And there is no question that over the last few decades, China has substantially grown its capacity to use military power over long distances. It is building a formidable fleet of strategic airlifters, allowing it to fly personnel and equipment around the globe quickly. More recently, it has begun to grow its aerial refueling fleet; such a fleet has long been a key attribute of the United States’ ability to project air power globally. And China now has dozens of “blue water” warships designed to operate in the open ocean (as opposed to “brown water” coastal vessels), including aircraft carriers and replenishment ships to keep the fleet at sea.
But then, consider that China has not added to the single overseas base it opened in Djibouti in 2017; it is years away from fielding a bomber with intercontinental range; and it has nothing like the global alliance network of the United States. The new fighter aircraft, landing barges, drones, and missile systems that have emerged this year don’t suggest an overwhelming focus on global power projection either. They will primarily strengthen China’s position in its neighborhood.
The focus should therefore be on China’s regional ambitions rather than its global presence. That is particularly bad news for Taiwan, because the military balance there is clearly swinging further in Beijing’s favor. A recent paper in the most respected academic journal in strategic studies, International Security, examined the trend lines and offered some alarming conclusions for Taipei and for those in Washington who argue that the United States has a vital interest in defending Taiwan. In “Access Denied? The Sino-American Contest for Military Primacy in Asia,” Nicholas Anderson and Daryl Press argue that the lynchpin of U.S. military power in Asia—its combat aircraft based in Japan and Guam—would suffer catastrophic losses in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
The paper develops a model of the damage that would be done to U.S. air bases by China’s large (and still growing) stocks of short- and medium-range missiles in the first 30 days of such a war. It concludes that even in the most favorable scenario, the United States would lose 45% of its force in that first month. And it is worth emphasizing that the paper looks only at the effects of Chinese missiles fired from land bases; it does not consider the effect of additional strikes from China’s air force and navy.
Anderson and Press offer various suggestions for how the United States can correct this growing imbalance, though none seem particularly promising. Ultimately, they suggest that a more fundamental rethink of U.S. strategy could be in order. Washington should consider moving from a mindset of military dominance to one of being a supporting player in the region.
“That a distant great power is the dominant military actor in East Asia may not be a long-term equilibrium, given the economic and technical might of other Asian countries,” the authors conclude. This is an understatement, especially when one considers how strange the world would look if the U.S. and Chinese roles were reversed. If China was the predominant power in the Western hemisphere, permanently garrisoning 70,000 troops in Canada and an aircraft carrier battle group in Cuba, that would indeed look very far from a “long-term equilibrium.”
To address the deteriorating military balance in East Asia, the United States could massively expand its presence there, yet there seems little prospect of it. China has been modernizing its military for over 30 years now, without a substantial U.S. response. Why would we expect that to change now? And even if Washington could overcome its inertia, which Asian country would agree to host all these forces, and which would offer the U.S. a guarantee that it would allow its territory to be used in a war against China?
Finally, if those barriers were overcome, China would almost certainly respond with increased military spending of its own. And as the military parade in Beijing reminded the world this week, an arms race would now play to Beijing’s strengths, not to Washington’s. A new equilibrium is indeed taking shape; U.S. military strategy and foreign policy must follow.
晕，丢人现眼，不是丢人显眼。 文化？ 不要把自身价值寄托在是否听说过一本杂志里，完了大庭广众之下碰瓷人家伟大领袖......
你看川总见到你这种三流中文错别字，英文原版名字都不会打的，川总也完全没有关心过啊，难道你不会打Samuel Huntington，川总就该给你祈祷一轮吗，那啥也不用干整天光祈祷了。人家最多是你这种英文烂的不准做卡车司机啊。