The first of October is the national holiday of the People's Republic of China, the anniversary of the proclamation of the republic in Beijing. This year's commemoration was special because it was the 60th anniversary, and it was marked by a military parade showcasing what the Chinese see as their military modernization. Themes included information warfare (as symbolized by ten short- and medium-range UAVs of three types and by several airborne early warning and control aircraft) and the creation of a smaller, more professional military (5,000 troops paraded instead of the 20,000 at the 50th anniversary celebration; the Chinese claim 2.3 million in uniform now after cuts ordered in 2005; peak strength was 6 million). The parade itself recalled the big Russian parades of the past (revived this year on V-E Day), at which observers strained to exploit a rare loophole in obsessive Soviet security. China is a much more open society, offering glimpses of equipment at regular arms shows (such as the Zhuhai air show); their strategy seems to be to show much more than is actually operational.
The Chinese announced that 52 weapons would be displayed. They included a new main battle tank, at least four types of self-propelled artillery, long-range rocket launchers, and heavy anti-tank rockets, as well as antiaircraft guns and mobile air-defense missiles. The latter seem to be the Chinese version of the French Crotale. The figure for new systems probably includes the UAVs, mobile radar, satellite communication devices, and mobile electronic countermeasures. Aircraft included J-10 and J-11 fighters. Accounts differed as to whether any of these were new; one observer thought that all were versions of weapons displayed a decade ago.
The Chinese emphasized the DF-21 maneuverable antiship ballistic missile, which they see as an counter to U.S. carriers that might intervene in a future Taiwan Straits war. The Chinese strategic missile force (2nd Artillery Corps) showed 108 missiles of five types. The Chinese claimed that three had not previously been shown: an IRBM (presumably DF-21), a cruise missile, and a mobile solid-fuel ICBM delivered in 2007. The cruise missiles were first delivered in 2006; since then 34 have been fired in 11 tests. Also on display were two shorter-range, solid-fuel conventionally armed missiles, DF-11A and DF-15B. Trucks with triple launchers were presumably carrying cruise missiles (the two big missiles were on trucks carrying single launchers).
The Chinese navy displayed two new surface-to-air missiles and a new antiship missile. The navy had already displayed its warships in an April 2009 review. One of the surface-to-air missiles, marked "YJ," was probably the Sparrow-like RF-61, perhaps in a new version with an active radar seeker (like some Chinese air-to-air missiles). The other naval missile broadly resembled the old Soviet SA-N-3, with cropped-delta wings and delta tail fins. It likely arms the new destroyers with phased-array radars (speculation was that these ships were armed with HQ-9, but that missile is too long for the apparent shape of the ships).
The new cruise missile was carried in cylindrical canisters on board trucks, three to a truck. The trucks seem to be identical to those carrying the strategic cruise missile, and the launchers are about the same size (but not at all the same shape; the strategic launchers are nearly square in cross-section), suggesting that the new naval missile is a variant of the cruise missile, something like the old antiship version of the U.S. Tomahawk. Placing what look like operational launchers on trucks suggests that the new antiship missile can be used for coast defense.
The Chinese national air defense force displayed HQ-9 and -12 long-range air defense missiles. HQ-9 is a Chinese version (perhaps even a direct copy) of the Russian S-300 (SA-10). HQ-12 appears to have the same body as the Russian SA-17 (which resembles the U.S. Standard Missile, but is electronically very different); it may of course have a new guidance section. HQ-9 could not be seen directly, but its cylindrical launchers certainly closely resemble those of the Russian missile.
The claim that the Chinese government has created a modern powerful military machine is extremely important because the justification for the civil war and for the communist regime is largely that the old China was unable to stand up to foreign attackers; it had to bow to humiliations imposed first by the West and then, particularly after 1931, by Japan. To some extent the claim, repeated endlessly within China, that weapons like the DF-21 missile can hold back any U.S. force trying to intervene in the Taiwan Strait is further justification for the regime, which has essentially abandoned its claim that communist ideology should shape China's future. The regime is nervous; Chinese citizens increasingly feel free to protest local injustice. Since that injustice reflects the patronage and corruption that make party membership worthwhile, these protests are actually about the nature of the Chinese state.
Growing Pains
From a military point of view, the regime faces two difficult problems. One is its desire to shrink its forces to the point at which they can be modernized affordably. Even 2.3 million is probably much too large, because modernization is very expensive on a per-soldier basis. Ultimately the army is the regime's guarantee of control throughout China. The more incidents occur, the greater the need for army presence. Even if the presence is paramilitary security units, they are expensive. Any attempt to cut numbers requires much more capital investment in items such as communications and mobility (i.e., helicopters). The rise of the Internet within China makes the regime even more nervous. From the outside, its problems may seem little more than the growing pains of a rapidly-modernizing country. However, it is not clear that the one-party state is very stable against such problems.
The second issue is true modernization. No parade can capture the degree to which the Chinese military has or has not grasped the potential of modern information-based warfare. UAVs and satellite dishes are necessary but not sufficient. The essence of successful network-centric or picture-centric warfare is that knowledge is widely dispersed so that relatively low-level commanders can make their own decisions based on the intent, but not the detailed control, expressed by more senior commanders. The usual command chain is relaxed in the interest of a much faster operational tempo.
This ideal is difficult to meet in any military system, because senior commanders intensely dislike surrendering control, particularly when seeing a detailed tactical picture tempts them to exert more control. How much more difficult is such relaxation when there is excellent political reason to retain rigid control throughout a force? We too often forget that military operations embody political culture. These ideas suggest that although many countries have easy access to modern information technology, surprisingly few may be able to exploit it properly.
The parade dramatizes a third point. Chinese military modernization has been impressive, but despite many denials China is still at the stage of importing much of its technology. A Chinese commentator, for example, claimed that the airborne early warning/control aircraft was a triumph of domestic development, foreign embargoes having blocked access to world technology. Presumably that was a reference to the U.S. pressure exerted on Israel not to sell China that country's Phalcon airborne warning aircraft.
The Chinese have also said that they were unhappy with technology offered by the Russians. Their airplane resembles the standard Russian Il-76, but its radome does not rotate; clearly it has a phased-array radar. Was it developed in China? Or does it exploit Israeli or Ukrainian technology? It is difficult to say, because the signals emitted by a radar often give little idea of its origins.
During the late 1960s and the early 1970s Mao Zedong inflicted the Great Cultural Revolution on China, effectively denying the country a whole generation of trained technologists who should have been teaching their successors into the 1990s and beyond. Chinese students did not begin to flood foreign universities for quite some time after Mao and his radicalism had gone, at least partly because it took considerable time for Chinese schools to progress to the point where such students could be prepared for advanced study abroad. There is no way for China to avoid this problem. In the parade, there was a striking difference between the ballistic missiles, which are largely home-grown, and other kinds of missiles which seem, at least in their configuration, to be anything but. Even in the ballistic missiles, there is evidence of subtler use of foreign technology, for example in guidance and in the use of stolen American nuclear weapon technology.
There is another way to see this point. Countries like China and the United States developed their domestic military industry, which they see as essential to their independence, first by copying entire weapon systems, then by importing what they need, and finally by developing their own design and production bases. The U.S. Navy, for example, bought British warship designs in the 1880s, and as late as 1914 it was not above simply stealing some important British fire-control devices. By the 1920s the U.S. Navy no longer depended on any foreign inputs. How long will it take the Chinese to get that far?