Lasers, hypersonic missiles and the ‘nuclear triad’: China flexes its military muscle

As 45 troop formations marched past Tiananmen Square, the new weapons on show at China’s giant military parade were a focus of domestic and international attention.

China’s leader Xi Jinping sought to project the People’s Liberation Army as a force the country could rely on. The parade’s display of nuclear capabilities reiterated Beijing’s determination to deter the US.

It included missiles that publicly demonstrated for the first time Beijing’s capacity to launch nuclear warheads from the land, sea and air.

Hypersonic, supersonic and autonomous weapons were also in evidence while displays of new drone and anti-drone gear highlighted technologies that could be vital in any future war over Taiwan.

Since Xi’s last parade in 2019, Beijing’s relations with Washington have gone from bad to worse, and tension over Taiwan, which China claims and aims to get under control, has soared.

The structure of the parade also reflected big changes in the PLA. Formations from the cyber warfare, information support and aerospace forces, established only last year in an effort to streamline command, marched through Tiananmen Square for the first time.

A debut for an advanced nuclear ICBM

The Dongfeng-61, China’s most advanced nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile, made an appearance at the military parade for the first time. Little detail is known about the road-mobile missile. But its display, alongside a new model of the silo-based Dongfeng-31 nuclear ICBM, highlights Beijing’s effort to rapidly expand and modernise its nuclear arsenal, a trend that is fuelling military competition with the US.

Apart from the two land-based ICBMs, the PLA also showed the JingLei-1, an air-launched long-range missile, and the JuLang-3, a new submarine-launched ICBM.

By presenting those missiles, Beijing has shown that it has acquired the capability to launch nuclear weapons from the ground, air and sea — the so-called “nuclear triad”.

State media reports on Wednesday called this China’s “strategic ‘ace’ power to safeguard sovereignty and nation’s dignity”. And China is also likely to be able to deploy its arsenal more quickly by having more nuclear warheads carried on patrolling submarines rather than kept in central storage.

Anti-drone defences

Another highlight of the parade was anti-drone equipment. China showed off the FK351, a ground-based anti-drone defence system. It was just one of a broad range of weapons for strengthening the defences of surface ships, tanks and aircraft in future conflicts that the PLA expects to become more and more driven by autonomous weapons.

Other anti-drone gear included tanks with uncrewed turrets and systems for countering enemy electronic interference with command and control. Chinese state media called missile guns, high-energy laser weapons and high-power microwave weapons the “triad” of anti-drone warfare.

Suyash Desai, a political scientist focused on Chinese defence affairs, said the emphasis on counter-autonomous systems showed that “clearly, the PLA has been observing and learning from the three recent conflicts and wars” including the Ukraine war, the Israel-Gaza war and the brief armed clash between India and Pakistan this year.

Both Chinese and US military scenarios for a conflict over Taiwan include the assumption that drones would be used on a massive scale.

A laser to target enemy aircraft

One of the weapons that attracted most attention was the LY-1, a huge shipborne laser that state television extolled as a key part of air defences for the PLA Navy’s surface fleet.

Militaries often use surveillance aircraft to track an adversary’s naval movements, for observation and training in peacetime and to help targeting during wartime. Directed-energy weapons, such as powerful lasers, can be used to target enemy aircraft.

However, the appearance of the LY-1 — the first such public display — is likely to fuel suspicions in the US and its allies over when and how China might use such weapons.

The use of lasers by Chinese ships to blind pilots of other countries’ surveillance aircraft has repeatedly triggered tensions with neighbours, as well as the US, Australia and Canada in recent years.

Hypersonic anti-ship missiles

Anti-ship missiles have long been used by China to erode US military dominance in the Indo-Pacific. More than a decade ago, it began developing a missile to deny US forces the freedom of operating in those waters during wartime, weapons that have become known as a “carrier killer”.

Beijing is now combining that focus with advances in hypersonic technology. On Wednesday, it showed four new supersonic and hypersonic anti-ship missiles from the YJ series. The YJ-17 is one of two that foreign military analysts believe have a hypersonic glide vehicle. HGVs can manoeuvre in high-speed flight after separating from their launch rocket to avoid anti-missile defences.

Analysts pinpoint missile technology as one of the areas where China’s progress has been fastest.

In 2021, Beijing shocked the US with a test of a hypersonic manoeuvrable spacecraft that fired a missile mid-flight — a breakthrough that US military leaders have compared to the 1950s “Sputnik moment”, in which the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space, ahead of the US.

An ocean-going ‘drone boat’

Among the biggest weapons unveiled at the parade was the HSU-100, a 20-metre long black cylinder resembling a submarine. Introduced as an uncrewed submersible, the drone boat is believed to be intended for collecting intelligence or targeting an enemy force at long distances in the ocean.

It was one of many new autonomous weapons shown at the parade. Together with the HSU-100, the PLA introduced the AJX-002, which was described as an uncrewed mine-laying submarine — a weapon that could be used to enforce a blockade of Taiwan or to seal straits in east Asia in a wider war.

A range of aerial drones for attack and surveillance were also on display, and many of the ground forces that participated in the parade had autonomous elements in their gear, such as small surveillance drones mounted on tanks and robot dogs carried on the back of electronic warfare equipment.

Financial Times