Guns of September: What a Parade May Reveal About China’s Military Modernization

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Guard of Honor of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. (Source: Xinhua)

Executive Summary:

  • The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) upcoming military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII will serve as both a symbolic display and an operational exercise, highlighting the PLA’s advancements in new combat domains—such as unmanned systems, directed energy, and electronic warfare—while also revealing improvements in command structure and organizational capacity. The parade aims to underscore loyalty to Xi Jinping as central to combat readiness, even as recent purges expose deep institutional instability and a persistent “trust deficit” between the CCP and the PLA. These tensions underscore the regime’s challenge in balancing political control with genuine military professionalization
  • The PLA will use the parade to demonstrate its growing joint capabilities, showcasing an integrated “Four Services + Four Arms” model and the role of new branches like the Aerospace and Cyberspace Forces. The involvement of militia units and strategic strike formations further emphasizes the whole-of-force approach underpinning China’s military modernization trajectory

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is finalizing plans for its massive 80th anniversary commemoration of victory in the “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression” (中国人民抗日战争) and “World Anti-Fascist War” (世界反法西斯战争) (People’s Daily, June 25). The event, to be held in Beijing on September 3, will feature a troop review and speech by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary and Central Military Commission (CMC) Chairman Xi Jinping. Global attention will likely fixate on the long columns of entirely domestically produced armored vehicles, missiles, and warplanes rolling through Tiananmen Square, highlighting the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) growing firepower (China Daily, June 24; Xinhua, June 25). The parade will also contain important indications about PLA command structure, organizational capacity, and operational readiness.

New Combat Forces on Display

In addition to traditional weapons and equipment, the parade will showcase “new combat forces” (新型作战力量), according to Major General Wu Zeke (吴泽棵), deputy director of the Military Parade Leading Group Office and deputy director general of the CMC Joint Staff Department’s Operations Bureau. Speaking at a June 24 state press conference on the planning for the commemoration, he said that this would reflect the PLA’s “strong ability to adapt to the scientific and technological developments and the evolution of conflict to win future wars” (适应科技发展和战争形态演变、打赢未来战争的强大能力) (State Council Information Office (SCIO), June 24). At a follow-up press conference on August 20, Wu detailed additional capabilities that will highlight the PLA’s improving combat capabilities in new domains and technological areas. These are set to include new land, sea, and air unmanned intelligent systems, directed energy weapons, and electronic jamming systems. The PLA will, per Wu, also use the parade to demonstrate its formidable strategic deterrent capability by exhibiting hypersonic, air and missile defenses, and strategic missiles (SCIO, August 20).

Non-Material Indicators of Military Modernization

Beyond a burgeoning arsenal, the parade also will illuminate two less tangible yet equally essential elements of PLA modernization: command structure and organizational capacity. On both counts, it will seek to show it can rise to the mantra of “Toward 100 Years, Toward Victory” (向百年，向胜利), now ubiquitous in PRC propaganda (81.cn; China Military Network, July 25). The slogan reflects increased emphasis under Xi on reaching the goals set by his predecessors; namely, realizing full military modernization by 2035 and becoming a “world-class military” by mid-century. As a steppingstone in these efforts, Xi added the PLA’s centennial in 2027 as a key benchmark for several key elements of military modernization: advancing mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization; modernizing doctrine, organization, personnel management, and technology; maximizing resources; and building a strong defense industrial base (China Brief, March 26, 2021).

At the August 20 briefing, Major General Xu Guizhong (徐贵忠) of the PLA Central Theater Command (解放军中部战区) stressed the parade’s operational nature as a test of the force’s organizational capacity, noting that effectively marshaling tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of weapons platforms is like “organizing for a major battle” (如同组织一场战役) (SCIO, August 20). Indeed, CCTV reported that the second exercise in preparation for the parade on August 16-17 involved 40,000 troops (81.cn, August 17).

Loyalty Remains a Weak Link

At the June press conference, Wu Zeke emphasized the link between political uprightness, loyalty to Xi and the Party, and military effectiveness (SCIO, June 24). He stressed that the parade would showcase the PLA’s “political construction, new force structure, progress in modernization, and achievements in combat readiness” (政治建军新风貌、力量结构新布局、现代化建设新进展、备战打仗新成效), all downstream of “resolutely following the Party’s command” (坚决听党指挥). Wu made certain to praise Xi, exclaiming how his leadership enables the PLA to “advance the spirit of the War of Resistance” (弘扬抗战精神).

Loyalty was a prominent theme again on Army Day (August 1), with a PLA Daily editorial calling for “forging political loyalty” (铸牢政治忠诚) and fighting the “decisive battle” (攻坚之战) to achieve the PLA’s centenary goals (PLA Daily, August 1). The article pledges that the PLA will thoroughly implement Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Military and the CMC Chairman Responsibility system. The shift over the past decade toward this new system and away from the previous CMC Vice-Chairman Responsibility System reflects Xi’s efforts to centralize organizational control over the PLA, which has enjoyed substantial autonomy throughout the reform era (China Leadership Monitor, July 14). As analysts Joel Wuthnow and Philip Saunders note in China’s Quest for Military Supremacy, Xi has pulled multiple levers to tighten the CCP’s grip on the PLA: re-emphasizing Party work and indoctrination as a part of a broader recommitment to Marxist principals; promoting his personal authority, including through promulgating Xi Jinping Thought in the military; implementing stricter personnel control; and strengthening oversight regimes (Google Books, March 10, 2025).

The Party must manage a careful balancing act between demanding loyalty while allowing the PLA a degree of autonomy on organizational, technical, and even operational matters to achieve modernization. As a result, the scourge of corruption in the military and defense industry persists, and loyalty to the CCP appears to remain conditional, predicated on the PLA’s occupation of a place of privilege in the PRC system (Observer Research Foundation, December 2, 2024). The difficulty of maintaining this balance has been laid bare in the upheaval at the top levels in recent months. The CMC has been decimated by purges, to the extent that only three of six uniformed military seats are now filled, with several members removed or disappeared since 2023, including apparent Xi loyalists, underscoring what K. Tristan Tang describes as Xi’s “trust deficit” with the PLA (China Brief, April 11). [1]

Joint Enough

The upcoming parade is an opportunity for the PLA to show it is sufficiently “joint” to achieve the ambitious goals laid out by Xi’s Thought (CGTN, October 11, 2022). The troop review will seek to demonstrate the PLA’s improving capacity for joint operations that integrate different services, groups, and teams via the new joint command, operations, and support model (SCIO, June 24). At the August 20 press conference, Major General Wu stated the parade reflects the PLA’s new “Four Services + Four Arms” (支军种+4支兵种) structure (SCIO, August 20). This system was codified on Army Day, when Xi conferred flags on the aerospace, cyberspace, and information support forces established in April 2024, as well as the Joint Logistics Support Force created in 2016 to coordinate logistical support for major military operations (Xinhuanet, September 13, 2016; China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), April 22, 2024; 81.cn, July 31). [2] The elevation of these organizations underscores the PLA’s growing cognizance that the complexity of network-centric warfare requires the adoption of a military structure more akin to a U.S.-style joint force (Defense One, April 28, 2024).

The parade’s equipment formation will be organized according to practical joint combat strategies, including land and maritime combat groups, air and missile defense groups, information combat groups, unmanned combat groups, support groups, and strategic strike groups (SCIO, August 20). The aerial formation will highlight the systematization and rapidly improving combat capabilities of the PLA’s air combat forces (SCIO, June 24). This includes continuing refinement of its division of labor in terms of aerospace operations between the Air Force (bolstered by the recent transfer of former PLA Navy aviation units), the Rocket Force, the Aerospace Force, the remaining PLAN aerial assets, and the PLA Army Aviation and Air Defense Branches (CASI, July 31, 2023, July 2024).

Militia forces also will participate in the parade, an important reminder that the PLA includes not only its services and arms and the People’s Armed Police (including the Coast Guard) but also a large militia (SCIO, June 24).The militia, which is organized by local People’s Armed Forces Departments and includes maritime militia operating in the South China Sea, serves as a reserve and auxiliary force for the PLA (China Brief, March 15).

Conclusion

The operational aspect of the military parade preparations underscores that readiness remains paramount for the PLA. As the scholar Taylor Fravel recently observed, despite the costs to operational readiness of Xi’s recent large-scale purges, the PLA must be prepared to fight now, not just by 2035 or 2049 (Foreign Affairs, July 18). Fravel notes that, from 1949 to 1979, Chinese leaders often felt compelled to go to war at moments when the PLA’s readiness was questionable. In the same way, while the force that struts through Beijing next month may be doing so to honor past victory, the troops will be marching in preparation for the next war and, in their eyes, future triumph.

 

Notes

[1] See also Zi Yang, “Five Key Factors Behind Irregular Leadership Changes in the People’s Liberation Army,” February 14, 2025, https://jamestown.org/program/five-key-factors-behind-irregular-leadership-changes-in-the-peoples-liberation-army/;Kenneth Allen, “Assessment of PLA Leaders at the End of 2024,” China Brief, January 17, 2025, https://jamestown.org/program/assessment-of-pla-leaders-at-the-end-of-2024/

[2] For more on these new arms, see China Brief, April 26, 2024 [McReynolds & Costello], [Costello 1], [Costello 2].