On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States.
The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized in conducting large multilateral military exercises and this year was gifted by China with a development bank.
This two-punch SCO summit and Sept. 3 military parade also demonstrated that CCP leader Xi Jinping (習近平) can out-powerplay US President Donald Trump — who had just bombed Chinese ally Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure on June 21, and respond to Trump’s attempts to hive Russia off of the “Axis of Evil” now led by China.
On Sept. 15 Trump hosted Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Alaska for six hours, trying to start real negotiations to end his Ukrainian War destroying Russia — but supported militarily by North Korea and China — trying to impress him with the flyover of a single B-2 stealth bomber.
Two weeks later Putin spent about five days in Beijing and was the most important guest observing China’s nearly 3 hour military parade of over 80 different weapons on the ground and over 100 military aircraft in the sky.
In a stunning image one could see the encapsulation of the CCP’s New World Order: the marching in unison of the world’s four major nuclear armed dictatorships, Xi, Putin and Chinese nuclear proxies Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — the latter making his debut at a foreign multilateral summit-level event.
These dictatorships comprise the core of the CCP’s “Community Of Common Destiny” — a destiny to be determined by the CCP — that for Taiwan will start with Russian and North Korean direct assistance for China’s war to destroy Taiwan’s democracy.
But in the CCP/PLA’s panoply of “cognitive warfare,” or information / disinformation mobilization to manipulate enemies, perhaps its most serious propaganda “bomb” was dropped in a September 3 CGTN state television post-parade interview with Professor Victor Gao (高志凱), a current star in the CCP Propaganda Department’s revolving array of regime flacks.
Gao kicked off a new major CCP propaganda theme when he declared, “…I’m convinced, more and more convinced that the Chinese military is the strongest in the world, next to nobody.”
Expect the CCP’s “cognitive” manipulation orchestra to hype this theme as it can: 1) help convince Chinese they can never escape the CCP dictatorship; 2) force most other countries to accommodate Beijing more and Washington less; 3) push America’s allies to doubt the strength of their alliance; and 4) further undermine the confidence of Taiwanese that Washington can save them, giving power to the sirens of accommodation with the CCP, meaning surrender.
Reflecting the “comprehensive deepening of national defense and military reforms” initiated by Xi in late 2015, the Sept. 3 parade revealed several new threats to Taiwan which also threaten the military ascendance of the United States.
For decades China has refused to negotiate limits on its nuclear arsenal while it has also attacked the successive US attempts to build missile defenses, starting with its opposition to Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). But now the PLA is building its own “Red Dome” national missile defense as it seeks nuclear weapons superiority — better to dissuade Washington from defending Taiwan.
Trump’s promise to build a “Golden Dome” national missile defense system to protect the US and its allies would undermine the coercive power of China’s and Russia’s nuclear weapons — that could be employed cooperatively — by trying to steer the nuclear-armed missile race toward a new non-nuclear-armed missile race.
But on Sept. 3 the PLA revealed its new HQ-19 large missile interceptor capable of defeating incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and attacking satellites in Low Earth Orbit — giving kinetic capability to the PLA’s two decades of investment in radar and satellite early warning — some of which was aided by Russia.
In addition, the PLA revealed a “triad” of ground, sea and air nuclear weapons: the liquid-fueled and large silo-based DF-5C appears to be a single warhead replacement for earlier DF-5s, but could also be a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) capable of South Pole-trajectory attacks against the US — to stress the Golden Dome defenses.
The PLA also revealed the new DF-61 mobile ICBM, a likely improved version of the DF-41 but perhaps armed with multiple very difficult to intercept Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV) warheads, and the silo-based DF-31BJ ICBM — in a self-contained cold-launch tube that could facilitate multiple reloads of the PLA’s new 300+ ICBM silos.
Also displayed was the likely multiple-warhead armed JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), which looked like the JL-2 SLBM displayed in 2019, and the JL-1 air launched ballistic missile (ALBM), potentially giving the Xian H-6N bomber an 8,000km strike range.
The PLA also revealed a potential asymmetric counter to Golden Dome, a new ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicle (ULUUV) that could be similar to the Russian Poseidon/Skif nuclear-powered and nuclear armed intercontinental torpedo — a weapon Golden Dome cannot intercept.
Another Sept. 3 revelation is the degree to which the PLA is advancing in the application of advanced information and Artificial Intelligence to enable unmanned and even autonomous weapons, and to enhance traditional weapons.
Perhaps most unsettling was the revelation of the world’s first two supersonic-speed capable, potentially autonomous jet-fighter-size Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), to be controlled from PLA 5th and 4th generation manned fighters to force attrition of the manned combat aircraft of Taiwan, the US and Japan.
About the same size as a Chengdu Aircraft Corporation J-10 fighter, these two “CCAs” could be competitive products of Chengdu and the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, which are now testing prototypes of their 6th generation combat aircraft.
While the US is also devoting increasing effort to develop CCAs, the PLA’s may now be in service while the US has not yet revealed any supersonic CCAs.
Achieving air superiority over Taiwan, to include defeating US airpower in the region, is an absolute requirement for the PLA to proceed with any amphibious or air assault invasion of Taiwan.
But the September 3 parade revealed that the PLA has multiple-tracked, wheeled and leg-propelled unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), armed with small anti-tank rockets and assault rifle weapons, that can deploy from amphibious landing craft or helicopters, to lead the assaults on Taiwanese counter-invasion defenses.
Another piece of “cognitive” propaganda revealed on Chinese social media on September 3 was an image of humanoid and “wolf” robots watching the September 3 parade — an indicator that the next PLA military parade could feature a phalanx of combat-capable humanoid robots.
But the PLA is also preparing to counter Taiwan’s investments in drones, having revealed three types of laser weapons, two specifically to counter drones, and a large Norinco microwave weapon to fry the electronics of small drone weapons.
PLA revelations also included next-generation armor systems, its T-100 main battle tank, a lighter 40-ton vehicle that combines Active Protection System (APS) small missiles to defeat anti-tank missiles, quiet hybrid diesel-electric propulsion, and new digital sensors and controls that may even enable distant, even intercontinental satellite-based control.
Another invasion-related revelation was a second generation of new airborne armored vehicles, to include infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers and a new 120mm mortar carrier, that can be air dropped by the Xian Aircraft Corporation Y-20 and Y-20B heavy transport aircraft seen in the parade.
Other PLA power projection revelations of the parade include the first assemblage of the future PLA Navy carrier air wing, featuring the new KJ-600 carrier airborne warning and control system (AWACS), the 4+ generation J-15T catapult takeoff fighter and the J-35 5th generation catapult takeoff fighter — which now approach the power of the US Navy carrier air wing.
Taiwan’s response is encouraging, starting with the announcement in late August of a 22.9 percent increase in defense spending for 2026, potentially increasing military spending to 3.39 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first time since 2009.
While short of some suggestions from US officials that Taiwan increase its military spending to 5 percent or even 10 percent of GDP, it is progress and what Taiwan intends to acquire is encouraging.
This starts with increasing its Lockheed-Martin HIMARS missile launchers from 29 to 57, indicating a future capability to launch up to 114 300+km range ATACMS short-range ballistic missiles.
There are also plans to acquire about 50,000 drones both small and large over the next five years, to include over 2,000 Altius-600MV autonomous anti-armor drones from Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Corporation.
Both the PLA and Taiwan are drawing on the harsh lessons of the Ukraine War that both short and long-range drones are essential and decisive on the battlefield.
These acquisitions will add to the ongoing delivery of purchases made during the first Trump Administration: 400 Harpoon ground-launched anti-ship missiles; 66 new Lockheed-Martin F-16V 4+ generation jet fighters; and HIMARS launchers and ATACMS missiles.
But as the PLA invests more heavily in drone weapons and humanoid robots, the US should consider the near-term sale of US-developed laser and microwave weapons, as Taipei should consider the investing in the asymmetric power of assembling militia units able to add hundreds of thousands of rifles and shoulder-launched missiles for area defense missions.
Another asymmetric response to the PLA’s robot and humanoid robot weapons would be massive use of 50-caliber anti-materiel rifles, giving reservists and militia the range and power to destroy their thin metal.
Today it is the United States that has the near-term option to dramatically impact the CCP/PLA’s Taiwan invasion plans by surging the production of theater range missiles and by deploying tactical nuclear weapons to the Indo-Pacific theater — where today there are practically none.
In 1957 former President Dwight Eisenhower approved the deployment of tactical nuclear armed Matador cruise missiles to Taiwan to convince Mao Zedong (毛澤東) to change his gathering plans for invasion.
Perhaps only when Xi understands that he will lose multiple waves of 100,000 invasion troops and their equipment will he change his plans to invade the island democracy.
Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
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