China has sent a resounding message to the rest of the world about the scale, depth and sophistication of its military deterrent, coupled with an olive branch that its growing technologically intensive armed forces would be scaled down by 300,000 troops.
At the perfectly choreographed military parade at Tiananmen Square marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, China, for the first time rolled out an array of sophisticated missiles — the core of its nuclear and conventional deterrent — that could credibly engage the United States on land and sea. Nearly 200 planes also took part in Thursday’s parade including the J-11 multirole fighter jets — an adaptation of Russia’s highly capable Su-27 fighters — the J-15 newly developed aircraft- carrier borne planes and the KJ-500 early warning command post in the sky. Most of the weaponry demonstrating China’s full-spectrum fighting skills, was indigenous, including the Beidu satellite navigation system, which is set to compete with US-owned Global Positioning System (GPS), following a recent alliance between Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma’s Alibaba group and Norinco, a state-run military enterprise.
Despite the show of strength, the Chinese President Xi Jinping softened the message of China’s growing military clout by announcing that the size of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be reduced by 300,000. This will be the fourth reduction of forces in the 2.3 million strong armed forces in tune with the country’s military modernisation drive that commenced in the eighties.
"We Chinese love peace. No matter how much stronger it may become, China will never seek hegemony or expansion. It will never inflict its past suffering on any other nation," Mr. Xi observed.
Four missiles, capable of the shifting the strategic balance of power in the Pacific, were the star attractions of the parade, which took place in the context of the US Pivot to Asia, a doctrinal shift by Washington towards the Asia-Pacific. Out of them, the DF-21D came under the scanner, for these are seen as the most potent weapons to neutralise the military dominance so far exercised in the Pacific by the US aircraft carrier fleet.
The unique weapon first acquires a ballistic trajectory and then re-enters the atmosphere, defeating most defences, by attacking ships at 10 times the speed-of- sound.
The Chinese also unveiled the DF-5B Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) — apparently a vast improvement over the earlier DF-5, as it can attack, almost unchecked, up to range of 12000 km because of its highly sophisticated Multiple Independently-Targeted Reentry Vehicle (MIRV) warhead.
The Chinese seemed to have worked hard at their second strike capability — an ability to counterattack with atomic weapons after absorbing a nuclear first strike. The mobile solid fuelled DF-31D missiles, capable of escaping destruction on account of their mobility were rolled out at Tiananmen Square.
The DF-26 intermediate–range ballistic missile capable of targeting Guam — the U.S. military base in theWest Pacific-was the fourth eye-catching weapon, among missiles, that was observed during the parade. Thursday’s march- past also show-cased the kinetics of shifting political equations.
Eurasia led by Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with Presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, was strongly represented at the parade. President Putin, his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma along with host China, seemed to well represent Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) core as well. General V.K. Singh, the Minister of State for External Affairs represented India, which had played a sterling role in defeating Japanese militarism, by contributing forces and keeping supply lines open to the Chinese resistance through the Assam-Burma Stilwell road during World War II.
