China Unveils Next-Generation Arsenal: Hypersonic Missiles to Stealth Fighters

China is ready for war. That was the unmistakable message Beijing sent to the entire world this week, as thousands upon thousands of Chinese troops staged one of the most elaborate military parades the world has seen across the last half-century. Celebrating the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War II, China’s grand spectacle was meant to send a series of critical messages around the globe.

To the people of the Middle Kingdom, the directive was to take pride, for the nation is strong and powerful. To China’s allies on the global stage, it was a welcome assurance that loyalty to China will be rewarded. And to the global West, the message demanded attention, declaring that China is the new superpower in town.

Facing tens of thousands of his people in Tiananmen Square, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke with absolute clarity: “Today, mankind is faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero sum.”

The Geopolitical Spectacle and the Reality of Untested Hardware

Most of the world has been consumed by the geopolitical implications of the parade: China standing united with its allies, while America and Europe watch from halfway around the world. But the event was about far more than strategic messaging; it was about military might, and there is no better way to announce military might than by revealing an abundance of secret weapons. Some of them were known by rumor in the Western world but seen only rarely, if they had been seen at all.

Others are weapons that China has boasted about for years but shown in operation for the very first time. Still others were entirely new, unknown to China’s adversaries besides whatever data might exist in the guarded vaults of military intelligence. And if these weapons truly perform in the way China claims, then its global adversaries have substantial reason to be concerned about just how powerful the world’s new superpower could be.

A few realities must be acknowledged regarding the military technology on display in Beijing. With a few exceptions, most of the new hardware that China presented during its military parade was not shown in action. None of the new equipment was shown either firing weapons or fulfilling other core functions that it would have to execute in a time of war.

As a result, the performance of the unveiled weapons is still a mystery in most cases. Some of it might not be ready to go operational, and some of it may simply be vaporware—fabricated weapons that are just as much of a fiction as the bipedal combat mech suit that Russia unveiled in 2018, or the T-14 Armata tank that Russia claimed it was definitely going to build. It is also worth remembering that despite the grand spectacle of China’s military parade, the training required to look good while executing a goose-step is very different from the training required to fight and win a war.

China could unveil the most futuristic superweapons imaginable during this event, and it still would not change the fact that the nation’s military and its hardware are completely untested in a modern war. But even with those caveats, military innovation matters. Even a conservative assessment of what China just unveiled has made it clear: other than the United States, there is no other world power with a military-industrial complex that can rival China.

There used to be, but not anymore.

Expanding the Nuclear Triad with Next-Generation Ballistic Missiles

The display of missiles featured prominently in the exhibition, and perhaps most important among them was the Dongfeng-5. The weapon, known as the DF-5 for short, is an intercontinental ballistic missile that has been in service since the 1980s. However, during the parade, China unveiled the newest version, the DF-5C, for the very first time.

According to Chinese officials, the DF-5C is capable of hitting anywhere in the United States, utilizing a more powerful set of engines and operating at a longer range than any of its predecessors. Furthermore, every DF-5C can carry twelve nuclear warheads in a configuration known as MIRVs: multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles. While in flight, a missile of this kind intentionally splinters and releases numerous smaller sub-missiles, each raining down onto their targets independently, making interception an exponentially more difficult task.

The DF-5C is designed to be launched from underground missile silos, with a range that the Associated Press estimates at 12,400 miles, or 20,000 kilometers. Nor was the DF-5C the only new ICBM that China unveiled. The nation also displayed its secretive DF-61 missile for the very first time.

The DF-61 is a mobile, truck-launched missile with a range estimated around 7,500 miles, or 12,000 kilometers. That places United States cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Seattle all well within its range. These targets are threatened by missiles that could be moved all around China until nearly the moment of launch, making them far more difficult to take out with a pre-emptive strike.

During the parade, China also presented its air-launched long-range nuclear missile, the JL-1, and the submarine-launched ICBM, the JL-3. When taken together, the missile technology China put on display represents another fearsome capability: a full nuclear triad, now with the stated ability to hit any target across the globe.

Directed Energy Weapons, Robotics, and Ground Combat Innovations

Beyond traditional munitions, China showcased advanced directed energy weapons, listed as the LY-1, which were shown during the parade mounted atop a row of armored trucks. According to official Chinese sources, the LY-1 is intended for naval use as an exceptionally powerful laser that will intercept drones and missiles. It will accomplish that task by essentially blinding their optical sensors, making them far less effective, and likely to become useless if they are reliant on optical sensing to identify and hit their targets.

Aboard a ship, the LY-1 would likely be able to harness extreme raw power, with vessels more than capable of carrying a specialized power generator onboard to fuel the laser’s energy consumption needs. The system could also be turned against human operators, blinding pilots in adversary aircraft, shooting at adversary ground troops while mounted on a truck, or potentially even being pointed at enemy vessels. The weapon mirrors American and European systems currently in testing, although it remains unknown whether China’s LY-1 is ahead of those systems in development, falling behind, or running alongside them.

Also in the realm of futuristic technology, China exhibited what it described as robotic wolves—four-legged robots equipped with antennas and imaging equipment to self-navigate. Similar to technology in development by other nations, these robots are likely to be used in reconnaissance or minesweeping missions, and may even be used to track enemy troops, although their level of technological maturity is an open question. China’s ground forces representation included newly unveiled army units: a large cyberspace unit that will engage in digital warfare, and an information support force that was established just over a year ago.

Beijing showed off new microwave weapons and a new so-called missile gun carrying up to 96 interceptors to shoot down adversary drone swarms. China also displayed the existence of the truck-mounted HQ-29, a space defense system supposedly able to shoot down the satellites of foreign adversaries while they are in orbit. For ground combat operations, the military showed off a series of new light combat vehicles that can be airdropped into active combat zones alongside paratroopers, indicating a potential willingness to engage in parachute-drop operations that could extend beyond just a Taiwan invasion.

Finally, China unveiled the Type 100 main battle tank and the Type 100 infantry fighting vehicle. This new designation is based on a common tank chassis and is described by China as a fourth-generation system. The Type 100 is believed to use an auto-loading unmanned turret, likely equipped with onboard drone-killing technology, and possibly accompanied by robotic wolves.

Naval Advancements and Hypersonic Anti-Ship Capabilities

On the naval front, despite the logistical impossibility of sailing aircraft carriers into the city streets of Beijing, brand-new maritime equipment was still heavily featured on display. One of the most impressive weapons to be shown off was the AJX-002, a sixty-five-foot, or eighteen-meter-long, unmanned underwater vehicle or UUV. It is built to be stealthy and evade detection from typical anti-submarine warfare vessels and their onboard equipment.

For an unmanned submarine, the AJX-002 is impressively sized, demonstrating that China has been watching lessons learned from other conflicts, like Ukraine, just as keenly as the rest of the world. An unmanned submarine of this scale could be tremendously useful in performing reconnaissance without putting human operators at risk. Alternatively, it could be loaded with a staggering amount of explosives and detonated against the underwater hull of an adversary vessel.

Meanwhile on the surface, China revealed a new unmanned vessel towed on a truck bed, albeit without clear indicators of its intended operational use. Just as important, if not even more so, was a sequence of anti-ship missiles known as the YJ series. Several missile types from the YJ line are intended to be hypersonic.

According to China’s state media, they are all-weather capable, making them entirely viable for deployment in rough conditions against oceangoing targets. The YJ-series of missiles is especially concerning to the United States because they are designed to be able to destroy American aircraft carriers. They are built to dodge incoming interceptors at over five times the speed of sound before detonating in the precise location required to send a carrier and its entire air complement below the waves.

That capability makes the missile series a particular problem for a hypothetical defense of Taiwan, where Washington and Taipei alike have been operating on the assumption that American carriers would be the deciding factor in whether or not Taiwan could withstand a Chinese invasion. Most prominent among the featured missiles was the YJ-19, which appeared to be outfitted with a scramjet propulsion system that could make it even more difficult for the United States military to intercept.

Fifth-Generation Fighters and the Future of Chinese Air Power

China made some of the most impressive revelations of the entire military parade in the domain of air power. Some of China’s aerial assets were displayed on the ground, including a procession of unmanned fixed-wing and helicopter drones transported on heavy trucks. Of those drones, some appeared more familiar than others; one was a precision-strike drone similar to the American MQ-9 Reaper, while another is likely a high-altitude reconnaissance drone that may possess some level of strike capability.

Two of them, however, appeared to be intended as unmanned combat aircraft—otherwise known as loyal wingmen—built to fly alongside manned aircraft or even operate autonomously in a dynamic combat environment. Those drones were roughly the size of China’s manned J-10C fighter jet, suggesting that they likely carry relatively heavy weapons loads and have the fuel capacity to afford them a highly impressive range. Although they were not observed in flight, China is known to have recently flown multiple other aircraft believed to be loyal wingman designs, suggesting that Beijing’s ability to field this type of aircraft is maturing rapidly.

Regarding manned aircraft, the most impressive debut by a wide margin was a fifth-generation aircraft known as the Shenyang J-35. Flying behind several copies of China’s more established J-20, the J-35 is similar in design and profile to the American F-35, and it is expected to operate off China’s upcoming line of aircraft carriers. It did not perform anything aerobatically complex during the show, other than successfully flying its designated path, but its public unveiling remained a major testament to China’s ability to build highly sophisticated stealth aircraft.

Careful onlookers spotted four other new aircraft, including the two-seater variant of the stealthy J-20, known as the J-20S, where a co-pilot will be capable of directing drone swarms, operating as a real-time coordinator of battlefield intelligence, and more. There was also the J-15DT, a new version of the J-15 fighter that China uses on its aircraft carriers. The DT program is an electronic-warfare version of the jet, meant to operate off the new catapult-launch carriers that China is building, instead of the ski-jump carriers already in service.

The parade featured the Y-20 strategic airlifter, which is not new by itself but was presented with advanced engines that it has now been equipped with. Finally, China showcased the KJ-600, a twin-propeller, folding-wing aircraft meant to operate off aircraft carriers, equipped with an early warning and control system similar to the US Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye. While most of these pieces of equipment were not shown in action, the display of this much advanced equipment simultaneously shows that China’s military-industrial complex is operating at a level far beyond nearly any other nation on Earth.

Even if half of these systems were unproven vaporware, the remaining inventory still places China in the topmost tier of military innovators in the 21st century.

The Hidden Arsenal and Capabilities Left Off the Parade Ground

Although China revealed a staggering range of new weapons systems during its parade, it is essential to catalog the technology that China did not unveil, which is believed to be in active development. In some cases, China may not have wanted to display concepts that cannot yet be trusted to perform flyovers or amble through the parade grounds without breaking down, echoing the incident involving Russia’s T-14 tank at a parade back in 2015. Other technology might simply be meant to remain secret, either until it reaches a point of maturity or until it is revealed in the heat of active combat.

Most prominent on the list of missing items was substantial sea power. Other than unmanned surface and submarine drones and the anti-ship cruise missiles that China showed off, capital naval power was almost entirely absent from China’s display, despite Beijing’s extensive focus on that technology. While deploying a naval destroyer into Tiananmen Square is logistically unfeasible, China could have showcased naval capabilities via broadcast and explicitly chose not to do so.

Those hidden assets include China’s newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, currently undergoing sea trials. China could have highlighted the Fujian’s catapult-launch capability, including by launching the stealthy and newly unveiled J-35, which reportedly underwent catapult trials in May of this year. Alternately, China could have showcased its anticipated Type 004 aircraft carrier while it is being built in drydock.

Construction for the Type 004 began last year, and once it is ready, the vessel will be China’s first nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier. China also could have displayed a line of new, specialized landing barges, which made headlines earlier this year when they laid down a line of bridges from the deep ocean onto Chinese shores, captured in images by citizens who saw them in action. Other types of Chinese unmanned surface vessels have also been spotted with images circulated online, while over twenty unmanned surface and underwater vehicles have been officially confirmed by the Chinese government.

Just as surprising, however, was the air power that China chose to keep hidden. According to military aviation experts, the most anticipated appearance was the H-20, China’s first strategic stealth bomber, and the first stealth bomber produced by any nation other than the United States. The Chinese Air Force had been advertising that the H-20 was soon to be unveiled since early in 2024, and earlier this year, still images circulated that are believed to depict the H-20 performing high-altitude testing.

A low-altitude flyover by the H-20 would have dominated global defense analysis, making its absence notable. There is also the J-36, a mysterious, tailless three-jet aircraft that was spotted over the city of Chengdu in early 2025, making multiple test flights over publicly visible routes and allowing sources to capture high-quality imagery. The J-36 is purportedly a sixth-generation aircraft, a generation ahead of both the J-20 and J-35 in Chinese service, and the F-22 and F-35 in American service.

By unveiling the H-20 and the potentially world-first publicly revealed sixth-generation fighter in the J-36, China could have made a far more overt claim about its ability to rival or eclipse the United States. The fact that China skipped that opportunity remains an interesting indicator of strategic restraint.

Global Implications and the Assertion of Superpower Status

With this vast array of new military equipment unveiled, while a fair proportion of China’s suspected technology is kept in reserve for a later date, the larger geopolitical question emerges regarding the strategic signal China intended to send to the world. Part of the motivation is straightforward: a nation displays a multitude of purportedly powerful, advanced weapons to intimidate enemies and embolden allies, instilling pride in the hearts of its citizenry while seeding fear into the minds of foreign observers. But the deeper implications reveal a comprehensive strategic realignment.

The intense focus from defense experts across the world on new Chinese technologies is almost certainly by design. While military parades are not a direct sign of combat readiness, China has provided the international community with undeniable evidence of a booming military-industrial complex that is producing highly significant hardware. This message is equally crucial for Beijing’s international partners.

Although some of China’s most advanced technology, such as its premium jets, aircraft carriers, and ICBMs, will be reserved for China’s sole use, a vast amount of its new technology could be offered for export. If China is able to research and develop this many concepts in so many directions, it speaks immensely to its capacity to mass-produce standard military equipment: naval frigates and corvettes, tested fourth-generation fighters like the J-10C, or main battle tanks already in service. Like the United States, Russia, France, Turkey, South Korea, and other militarily powerful nations, China aggressively seeks to be a major exporter of weapons.

This ambition is driven not only by financial benefits but by the long-term geopolitical connections that accompany status as a global arms dealer. The parade serves as a massive showcase to convince international partners that Beijing’s arms industry can handle substantial bulk orders. In terms of global alliances, the contrast between China and its foremost global rival, the United States, was starkly highlighted.

The parade was staged while Xi Jinping stood flanked by a range of influential world leaders: Putin from Russia, Kim from North Korea, Pezeshkian from Iran, Sharif from Pakistan, Subianto from Indonesia, and European leaders Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia and Robert Fico of Slovakia. While the United States anchors NATO and stands alongside Japan, South Korea, and Australia, China is solidifying a global coalition of its own, signaling tacit acknowledgment of its expanding military might. Ultimately, China’s selection of hardware reflected a shift toward fielding practical equipment for modern battle spaces.

The decision to display a range of new aerial and naval drones, plus several different kinds of counter-drone technology, makes it clear that China is closely observing global warfare trends and innovating rapidly to keep pace. Instead of merely building larger ICBMs for show, Beijing developed multiple-reentry missiles for lethal effectiveness. Instead of parading vulnerable aircraft carriers, it presented the hypersonic missiles designed to sink adversary carriers.

The spectacle in Beijing was a definitive declaration that China is prepared for future conflicts and intends to firmly establish itself as an unquestionable superpower on the world stage.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the DF-5C and why is it significant?

The DF-5C is China’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile, unveiled publicly for the first time at the parade. According to Chinese officials, it can strike anywhere in the United States and carries up to twelve independently targetable nuclear warheads in a MIRV configuration, making interception exponentially more difficult. Its estimated range is 12,400 miles, covering all American territory from underground missile silos.

What are the YJ-series hypersonic anti-ship missiles designed to do?

The YJ-series missiles are built specifically to destroy American aircraft carriers at hypersonic speeds, exceeding five times the speed of sound, making interception extremely difficult. The most prominent variant, the YJ-19, appears to be fitted with a scramjet propulsion system. These weapons directly threaten the US Navy’s carrier-based strategy for defending Taiwan.

What is the AJX-002 and what threats does it pose?

The AJX-002 is a 65-foot unmanned underwater vehicle designed for stealth reconnaissance, capable of evading typical anti-submarine warfare systems. It could also be loaded with explosives and detonated against the hull of an enemy vessel. Its scale suggests China has absorbed lessons from drone warfare in conflicts like Ukraine and is applying them to undersea combat.

What advanced air power did China unveil at the parade?

China’s most notable air power debut was the fifth-generation Shenyang J-35 stealth fighter, comparable in design to the American F-35 and intended for carrier operations. The parade also featured the two-seat J-20S, designed to direct drone swarms, and large loyal wingman combat drones roughly the size of China’s J-10C fighter jet, capable of operating autonomously alongside manned aircraft.

What major weapons systems did China deliberately keep off the parade ground?

China chose not to display the H-20 stealth bomber, its first strategic stealth bomber and the first produced outside the United States, despite advertising its imminent unveiling since early 2024. The J-36, a mysterious sixth-generation tailless fighter spotted over Chengdu, was also absent, as was the nuclear-propelled Type 004 aircraft carrier currently under construction, representing significant strategic restraint in what China chose to reveal.

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