China’s New Missiles on Parade: Showpieces or Showstoppers?

New America Strategist and ASU Professor of Practice Peter W. Singer wrote with John S. Van on what can be gleaned from China's display of missiles at a recent parade.

The hours-long showcase on Sept. 3 offered glimpses of new weapons—especially missiles—and hints about about China’s progress on key military technologies. These are valuable because the PLA operates in an opaque manner, and because its equipment and weapons, with some notable exceptions, have seldom been tested on the battlefield. But analysts must proceed cautiously: the parade was at heart a carefully calibrated influence operation. As one U.S. military analyst recently noted, the military equipment that the PLA displayed “was exactly what they wanted the world and the U.S. military to see.”   

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