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https://www.wsj.com/world/china/a-guide-to-chinas-...A Guide to China’s New Weapons on Parade in Beijing
Xi Jinping showcases his updated arsenal in a challenge to U.S. power
By Chun Han Wong, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 3, 2025
Chinese leader Xi Jinping brandished a sophisticated new arsenal in a grand military parade on Wednesday, showcasing weapons and aircraft that Beijing can use to challenge U.S. power in the Asia-Pacific region. The goal, Chinese Maj. Gen. Wu Zeke said, is to “demonstrate our military’s formidable strategic deterrent capability” and “win future wars.”
The military hardware on display was all made in China and in operational service…
Beijing has the world’s largest active army, estimated at about two million personnel, though its battlefield ability has yet to be tested. Formations on parade included troops from China’s Cyberspace Force and Aerospace Force, new arms of the Chinese military established in 2024…
China, a leader in hypersonic missile technology, showed off new arrivals…Hypersonic weapons can travel at extreme speed to better evade most air defenses….a projectile that is propelled to a high altitude before streaking down toward its target, maneuvering to make its path less predictable….
The parade called attention to China’s technological upgrades with a formation of unmanned aerial vehicles, including what state commentators described as the “wingman” drone, which is meant to fly alongside manned warplanes and offer autonomous combat support….
ICBMs…big long-endurance drones…multipurpose stealth jet…
New high-power laser and microwave weapons, paraded together on Wednesday, are designed to intercept targets such as drones and cruise missiles….
China’s navy has steadily expanded its power and range, with the world’s largest naval fleet of ships and submarines…a “shipborne laser weapon” meant for naval air defense, capable of mounting precise and continuous attacks on targets. It is meant to complement other air-defense armaments such as surface-to-air missiles….
China also has new unmanned underwater vehicles that can conduct submarine warfare and lay mines. These new drones, state media said, can autonomously detect and identify targets, and be deployed covertly to conduct blockades…. [end quote]
China also rewrote their propaganda to eliminate the role of the U.S. in conquering Japan during World War 2.
To state bluntly that China intends this firepower “to win future wars” is to aim directly at the U.S. potential defense of Taiwan from an invasion by China.
China has always considered Taiwan to be a part of China. Taiwan does not have a formal defense pact with the U.S. President Biden, when asked point-blank on “60 Minutes” said that the U.S. would defend Taiwan – to the dismay of the State Department which had said no such thing. The policy of the U.S. government regarding the defense of Taiwan is a complex and carefully balanced issue, largely rooted in a concept known as “strategic ambiguity.” The U.S. has sold weapons to Taiwan.
President Trump has made no commitments to defend Taiwan. But the defense establishment considers Taiwan to be part of the defense of Japan, Australia and the Phillippines in case the Chinese decide to take over the Pacific region the way the Japanese did in World War 2.
The crown jewel of Taiwan from the perspective of Macroeconomics is TSMC. TSMC is investing $65 billion in a fab complex in Phoenix, AZ with the help of $6.6 billion in grants and $5 billion in loans from the CHIPS Act.
The 2026 budget for the Department of Defense is still being debated in Congress. It’s not clear whether it will be increased over 2025. There will be some spending on advanced technologies like hypersonics, unmanned systems, and missile defense, including the “Golden Dome” initiative but it’s not clear that the defense honchos will demand changes in weapons from the military-industrial complex given that China’s weapons are making some of the most expensive into sitting ducks.
Wendy
