0:02 Around the world, September's been a
0:03 massive month for countries and
0:05 companies demoing new military
0:07 equipment. Tens of thousands of people
0:08 made their way to London for the DSCI
0:10 exhibition. I was one of them. And
0:12 Russia staged an impromptu drone tech
0:14 demo over Poland. We'll talk about both
0:16 of those soon enough. But before either
0:18 of those, eyes of analysts around the
0:19 world turned to China, where the
0:21 People's Liberation Army marked what it
0:22 calls the 80th anniversary of the
0:24 victory of the Chinese People's War of
0:26 Resistance against Japanese aggression
0:28 and the World Anti-Fascist War by
0:30 showing off a huge array of military
0:32 systems, many of which had never been
0:34 seen in public before. And so today, I'm
0:35 going to zoom in on just some of what
0:37 Beijing decided to show off to the world
0:39 and ask what it might tell us about the
0:41 progress of China's military
0:43 modernization speedrun. To do that,
0:44 we'll start with everyone's favorite,
0:46 the background and caveats. Why this
0:47 parade happened, what it can tell us,
0:49 and what it can't tell us. And then
0:51 we're going to move on to the metal.
0:52 With so much having been shown off, I'm
0:54 going to focus on four themes that I
0:55 think are worth a closer look. Nuclear
0:57 forces, next generation armor, counter
1:00 drone systems, and naval aviation. And
1:01 for each of those, talk a little bit
1:03 about what we saw, what it means, and
1:05 why that might matter. Then at the end,
1:06 we'll zoom out for a bit of a big
1:08 picture look, asking not just what we
1:10 saw during this particular parade, but
1:11 what we know about PLA modernization
1:13 more broadly and what that might mean
1:15 for how we think about China as a major
1:17 military power both now and going into
1:19 the future.
1:21 Okay, let's start context. Why did China
1:23 just show off a bunch of new military
1:24 equipment? And how should we interpret
1:26 that? The first thing to say is this was
1:28 an event of deep political significance.
1:30 the 80th anniversary of the end of World
1:32 War II, or as Chinese media puts it in
1:35 English, the 80th anniversary of the
1:36 victory in the Chinese people's war of
1:38 resistance against Japanese aggression
1:40 and the world anti-fascist war. That
1:43 makes it a parade, a demonstration, not
1:45 a military exercise. And so, I think
1:46 it's important as we go through the
1:48 various equipment that were shown or not
1:50 shown to give some thought as to why
1:51 that decision might have been made from
1:53 a political and narrative shaping
1:55 perspective. Essentially, don't assume
1:56 that every high significant system was
1:58 shown off at this parade or that every
2:00 system shown off at this parade was of
2:02 high significance. In terms of what was
2:04 showed off, there was a lot of variance
2:06 in terms of where these systems were on
2:07 their development and introduction
2:09 journey. Some of this was stuff that
2:10 we've known to be in service in
2:12 reasonable numbers for years at this
2:14 point. While in other cases, these were
2:15 systems we were seeing for the first
2:17 time. Given that, a lot of the coverage
2:19 I've seen in this event flags the need
2:21 to acknowledge some of the unknowns
2:23 here. As with any military parade or
2:24 trade show, just because a piece of
2:26 equipment was showed off doesn't
2:27 necessarily guarantee that it performs
2:29 as its data sheet or media release might
2:32 suggest, nor that it's available or in
2:34 service in large numbers. Indeed, if
2:35 being in a parade was proof that a piece
2:37 of equipment was everything a government
2:40 said it was, then by now the T14 Armada
2:41 would be the standard tank of the
2:43 Russian ground forces. There's also
2:44 always going to be a limit on how much
2:45 technical information you can
2:47 confidently gather based just on a
2:49 parade driveby. Many of China's new
2:51 missile systems, for example, like the
2:54 DF-61 or the CJ-1000, were displayed in
2:55 canisters on their tails, their
2:58 transporter erector launchers. In cases
2:59 like that, we can see what Beijing says
3:01 about a particular system, but
3:02 ultimately we can't see inside the
3:04 canister. We haven't observed these
3:06 systems being test fired, and so there's
3:07 always a chance that there's some smoke
3:10 mirrors or exaggeration involved. That
3:12 being the caveat though, I want to stick
3:14 an asterisk on the asterisk because one
3:15 of my concerns with some of the coverage
3:17 I've seen around Chinese military
3:19 developments is the tendency to
3:21 sometimes move from healthy skepticism
3:23 of those capabilities to dismissal of
3:25 them. If I was to create a generalized
3:26 flowchart of what you might call China
3:28 dismissal syndrome when it comes to
3:30 military equipment, it might go
3:32 something like this. Firstly, it starts
3:33 with the assertion that China couldn't
3:35 possibly build that type of system. Say
3:37 an aircraft carrier, for example. They
3:39 can only buy it in from abroad. Often
3:40 those assessments might attach to things
3:41 that historically are particularly
3:42 difficult from an industrial
3:45 perspective, like high performance jet
3:47 engines for fighters. Then of course,
3:49 China goes on to build one. Once China
3:50 builds something, the assertion might be
3:52 that it's just an inferior copy of
3:54 something else. We've seen that logic
3:56 attached to a lot of Chinese-built
3:57 versions of Soviet and later Russian
3:59 military equipment. The two rebuttals to
4:01 that would probably be that first,
4:02 something doesn't have to be original in
4:04 order to be very effective. And
4:05 secondly, we have plenty of precedent
4:07 for Chinese derivatives improving on the
4:09 original design. Speaking of Chinese
4:11 fighters back in 2020, for example,
4:13 Russi observed that quote, "The J16 and
4:15 J11D are evidence that Chinese
4:17 derivatives have now surpassed
4:19 Russian-built flankers with superior
4:21 multi-roll capabilities, longer ranged
4:22 and more effective missiles, and
4:25 operational ISISA radars." End quote.
4:27 But hey, the argument might go, it's
4:28 still a derivative. it doesn't reflect
4:31 an original Chinese design until
4:33 original Chinese designs are fielded and
4:34 there are plenty of them at this point
4:36 at which point you reach the assertion
4:38 that the system probably doesn't work or
4:40 at the very least it isn't battle tested
4:42 and in some cases it may be true but
4:43 that doesn't make it a safe or
4:44 reasonable assumption to assume that
4:47 anything that isn't battleproven can't
4:49 or doesn't perform to spec when the
4:51 export version of China's PL-15 airware
4:53 missile was used in the recent fighting
4:55 between Pakistan and India for example
4:57 it appears to have proven itself to be a
4:58 very dangerous ous missile with a long
5:01 reach. Missile ranges are obviously very
5:03 murky and always context dependent, but
5:05 it was generally reported that PL15E,
5:07 the version Pakistan had, had a range of
5:11 about 145 km. And reports citing Indian
5:12 officials suggest that they thought the
5:15 threat range was about 150 km. But
5:17 during some of the air combat we saw,
5:19 it's reported PL15 may have been used
5:21 beyond that range, including in a
5:23 claimed incident reported on by Reuters
5:25 involving the engagement of an Indian
5:27 Air Force Rafale. According to that
5:29 Reuters report, quote, "The PL15 that
5:32 hit the Rafal was fired from around 200
5:35 km away according to Pakistani officials
5:37 and even further according to Indian
5:39 officials." With Russy's Justin Bronc
5:40 noting that quote, "The Indians were not
5:43 expecting to be shot at and the PL-15 is
5:45 clearly very capable at long range." End
5:47 quote. which served as a bit of a
5:49 reminder that when you're not sure about
5:51 the exact performance of a system, it
5:53 might be the case that the adversary is
5:55 understating rather than overstating
5:57 what it can actually do. And given the
5:58 enormous success of Chinese
6:01 manufacturers across so many fields, it
6:03 seems very strange to me to be surprised
6:05 every time China produces capable
6:07 equipment and the potential adversaries
6:08 or competitors would generally be much
6:11 better off. Assuming that when China
6:13 sets out in a serious way to solve a
6:15 particular technical problem or design a
6:16 particular piece of equipment, given
6:18 their resources and capabilities,
6:20 they're probably eventually going to get
6:21 there. And so, while it's certainly
6:23 possible that some of the equipment we
6:25 go through today might not be as
6:27 operational or as effective as is
6:29 sometimes claimed, in my opinion, any
6:30 comments saying that this is a
6:32 fiberglass force are demonstrabably
6:34 wrong. And China's military
6:36 modernization is a very real effort
6:38 backed by the largest manufacturing base
6:40 on the planet. It needs to be treated
6:43 with respect and evaluated as such.
6:44 There are a couple of reasons then that
6:46 a parade like this might be useful to us
6:48 as observers. It might give us clues
6:50 about the direction Chinese military
6:51 equipment development is heading, how
6:53 they perceive their strategic challenges
6:55 or the future of the battlefield, and
6:56 what solutions or equipment they're
6:58 pursuing to address them. With the pace
7:00 China's military has been modernizing,
7:02 today's concept prototype or low rate
7:04 initial production example with some
7:06 technical rough edges can pretty quickly
7:08 become a mass-produced cornerstone of
7:10 the PLA's inventory. Essentially, it
7:11 makes sense to pay attention to what's
7:13 displayed today to gather some clues
7:15 about what might be deployed tomorrow.
7:17 So for the first equipment category to
7:19 get a detailed look, let's talk nukes.
7:20 You could argue that all arms of the
7:22 Chinese military are going through rapid
7:24 equipment transformation, but in terms
7:26 of raw qualitative and quantitative
7:28 growth, not much can compete with the
7:30 Chinese nuclear forces. While China's
7:32 been a nuclear weapon state since the
7:34 mid 1960s, it spent the overwhelming
7:35 majority of that time with one of the
7:39 smaller global inventories. A 2015 Rand
7:42 report assessed that in 1996, 2003, or
7:44 2010, if the United States had launched
7:46 a first strike against China's nuclear
7:48 forces, China would only have had a low
7:51 confidence in its nuclear second strike
7:53 capability, meaning they may have got
7:56 few, if any, shots off in response. In
7:58 2021, the Bulletin the Atomic Scientists
8:00 estimated the Chinese nuclear inventory
8:03 at about 350 warheads. In terms of raw
8:04 numbers, that put it ahead of but in the
8:06 same ballpark as countries like the
8:09 United Kingdom or France. By 2025, there
8:11 were more missiles in the force that
8:12 could reach the United States, and the
8:14 estimated warhead count now started with
8:16 a six. While the ground leg was scaling
8:18 up, though, both in terms of numbers and
8:20 reach, the air and naval elements of
8:22 China's nuclear forces were
8:24 significantly more limited. The aircraft
8:26 in PLAAF inventory that presumably would
8:28 have been responsible for delivering any
8:30 airdrop nuclear weapon was the H6
8:33 bomber, a non-stalthy subsonic aircraft
8:36 based on the Soviet F16, which entered
8:39 service in the 1950s. Not exactly the
8:41 kind of thing you might trust to carry
8:42 nuclear weapons deep into enemy
8:44 territory. The naval arm was
8:46 considerably better, anchored on a fleet
8:49 of six active Type 94 SSBNs, with the
8:50 potential weakness from a deterrence
8:51 perspective not being so much the
8:53 submarines themselves, but the missile
8:55 they carried. The main system in Chinese
8:57 service, the JL2, reportedly has a range
9:00 of about 7,000 km, which is a bloody
9:02 long way, but not, as you can see on the
9:04 map here, enough to enable a Chinese
9:06 submarine to get a warhead to, for
9:08 example, the United States West Coast
9:10 from Chinese waters. To get in range,
9:12 they'd obviously need to patrol out
9:14 further, but doing so might impose risks
9:15 that could potentially undermine
9:17 Beijing's confidence in its second
9:19 strike capability. The nuclear delivery
9:20 systems that China showed off at the
9:22 parade provide a pretty clear steer, I'd
9:24 argue, on some of the ways China is
9:25 trying to address these potential
9:27 strategic shortfalls. We saw a new
9:30 submarine launch ballistic missile, JL3,
9:31 which is a very similar form factor to
9:33 JL2 since it's meant to fit to the same
9:35 missile launch tubes, but which is
9:36 reportedly meant to have a range closer
9:39 to 10,000 km. meaning that according to
9:41 one US military assessment, it would
9:43 give the PRC the quote ability to target
9:45 the continental United States from
9:47 latoral waters. End quote. And in that
9:49 sense, you could argue this mirrors the
9:50 development we've seen from the French
9:52 nuclear forces, who've also moved
9:54 towards a longer range submarine launch
9:55 ballistic missile again with the
9:57 potential benefit of enabling their
9:58 ballistic missile submarines to provide
10:01 survivable second strike from much safer
10:03 waters. So that's the submarine
10:04 survivability problem potentially
10:06 covered. What about the Air Force?
10:08 Because until China is actually able to
10:09 field its next generation stealth
10:12 bomber, the H20, the H6 is what they
10:14 got. And as a general rule, if you're
10:15 trying to make an aircraft survivable,
10:17 but can't make it either stealthy or
10:19 quick. The remaining go-to option is
10:21 generally standoff, which is potentially
10:24 where this thing comes in. The JL1 air
10:26 launched ballistic missile. ALBMs are
10:28 not strictly a new concept. The US was
10:30 developing this thing, the Skybolt,
10:32 during the Cold War, and China's already
10:34 believed to have given their H6s access
10:36 to a smaller conventional anti-ship
10:38 ballistic missile. But if equipped with
10:40 a nuclear warhead, as many analysts
10:42 assess it might be, what JL1 would
10:43 potentially do is give the H6 the
10:46 ability to deliver nuclear strikes from
10:47 beyond the ability of most targets to
10:49 respond. And while new systems like this
10:51 might provide a significant leg up to
10:53 the air and naval arms of China's
10:55 nuclear triad, that doesn't mean we
10:56 didn't see anything for the
10:57 traditionally dominant ground leg. Far
11:00 from it. For example, China's heavy
11:03 liquidfueled silobbased ICBM, the DF5,
11:05 appears to be getting a new version.
11:07 While extremely difficult to verify, as
11:09 frankly a lot of this is going to be,
11:10 one of the key generally assessed
11:13 upgrade areas, is going to be range with
11:14 Chinese state media claiming this thing
11:17 has the capacity to reach out 20,000 km
11:20 or more than 12,000 mi, at which point
11:22 the system is essentially an everywhere
11:24 from anywhere weapon. In numerical terms
11:26 though, DF5 is not the backbone of the
11:28 current Chinese ICBM fleet. And there
11:30 are plenty of reasons you wouldn't want
11:32 it to be. It's very big. It's very
11:34 heavy. It's very expensive, and it comes
11:36 with some of the limitations inherent to
11:38 liquid fueled missiles. Historically,
11:40 liquid fueled missiles are a bit of a
11:42 pain to work with. Rocket fuels are
11:43 unpleasant materials to deal with in
11:45 general, and historical liquid fuel
11:47 designs couldn't be kept fueled for long
11:49 periods and could take a significant
11:51 period of time to fuel up when it came
11:53 time to make them ready for launch. It's
11:54 claimed that DF5C may have made
11:56 improvements in this area so it can be
11:58 kept in a ready state more of the time,
11:59 but the general expectation is it'll
12:01 remain a relatively specialized part of
12:03 the Chinese ICBM fleet and not be
12:05 universally deployed across all the new
12:07 missile silos that China's been in the
12:09 process of building. Instead, it's
12:10 generally expected that a lot of the
12:12 hundreds of new silos that China has
12:13 been constructing are going to be filled
12:16 with solid fueled missiles. potentially
12:17 this system which we saw in public for
12:21 the first time during the parade DF-31BJ
12:22 with it being reported that that J in
12:24 the designation likely stands for the
12:27 word Jing literally meaning well but
12:28 which has been used by the PLA to
12:32 describe missile silos. So DF-31 version
12:35 B silo variant and then finally rounding
12:38 out the section we had a new road mobile
12:40 ICBM DF-61.
12:42 Now, as you can see on the right there,
12:44 the visual differences between the
12:48 DF-61T we saw in 2025 and the DF41T we
12:51 first saw in 2019 basically comes down
12:54 to a change in paint job. That makes any
12:56 attempt to guess about potential
12:58 improvements in performance based on the
13:00 physical features alone pretty much dead
13:02 on arrival. Without the power of the W
13:03 behind you, you can't just paint
13:05 something a different color in order to
13:07 make it faster or go further. But for
13:08 what it's worth, Chinese sources claim
13:10 that this system has the kind of
13:12 capabilities you might expect. Basically
13:14 providing the same capability for China
13:17 that RS24 does for Russia. In terms of
13:18 the groundbased missiles, the
13:20 overwhelming focus here was on the
13:23 ICBMs, the stuff that could potentially
13:24 cover the distance from the Chinese
13:26 mainland to the continental United
13:27 States rather than China's more
13:30 intermediate range regional delivery
13:32 systems. As for the potential motives
13:34 behind that decision or what it might be
13:36 intended to signal, I'll happily leave
13:37 to the audience because instead I want
13:39 to close out this nuclear section by
13:41 essentially asking what does this mean
13:44 and why does it potentially matter.
13:45 In terms of the what, even if we hadn't
13:47 seen these systems, I'd argue the
13:49 overall pattern is fairly clear. The PRC
13:51 is building towards a full mature
13:53 nuclear triad. Its confidence in its
13:55 ability to launch a survivable second
13:56 strike, even in the face of a
13:58 counterforce first strike, is likely to
14:00 be growing. And its ability to deliver
14:02 warheads, especially over very long
14:04 distances, to targets, for example, in
14:06 Europe or the continental United States
14:09 is significantly growing. And the pacing
14:10 here is pretty stark when you compare it
14:13 to, for example, the United States.
14:15 After years of delays and cost overruns,
14:16 the first missiles are now expected to
14:19 enter service in the 2030s. And the
14:20 government accountability officer
14:22 suggested the Air Force take a look at
14:23 the possibility of keeping the Minute
14:26 Man 3, which ended service in the 1970s
14:28 in service to at least some degree out
14:30 to the year 2050. While there are
14:32 obviously some complexities involved, I
14:33 think it does give some sense of
14:36 perspective to the breadth and speed of
14:38 China's ICBM development and deployment
14:40 efforts. Overall, you could argue
14:42 essentially that if there were tiers of
14:44 nuclear weapon states, China would be in
14:45 the process of trying to move between
14:47 two of them. If it was previously the
14:49 case that it was clearly Russia and the
14:51 United States on top with China more a
14:52 peer of the likes of France and the
14:54 United Kingdom, China is now probably
14:56 somewhere in between those two
14:58 categories still a long way from being a
15:00 peer of the two nuclear superpowers. But
15:02 with the rate its warhead inventory has
15:03 been growing, the gap is certainly
15:05 narrowing. And even if all the powers
15:07 involved hopefully have the intention of
15:09 never actually using their nuclear
15:11 inventories, that potentially has
15:13 strategic implications. By narrowing the
15:15 nuclear balance between the PRC and the
15:17 United States, it might leave Beijing
15:19 feeling more strategically confident.
15:21 I'd argue Russia has been very
15:22 effectively able to use the threat or
15:25 perceived threat of nuclear escalation
15:26 to control Western intervention in
15:28 Ukraine, deterring allied states from
15:31 intervening directly and also gating the
15:32 types and quantities of weapons
15:34 provided, especially in the critical
15:37 years of 2022 and 2023. And it might be
15:38 that some in Beijing believe that a
15:40 stronger nuclear arsenal might encourage
15:42 their potential adversaries to
15:44 self-deter in that same way. It also
15:46 potentially helps future proof Chinese
15:48 military capabilities against American
15:50 investments in ballistic missile
15:52 defense. As we covered in our episode on
15:54 the Golden Dome in general when it comes
15:56 to missile defense, the offense is much
15:58 cheaper than the defense. And so while
16:00 it might have been plausible that with
16:01 significant investment eventually the
16:03 United States could develop a missile
16:04 defense capability that would have been
16:06 sufficient to hold back the nuclear
16:08 capability of say China in the early
16:11 2000s by adding many more warheads and
16:12 types of delivery systems to the force
16:14 the way they're doing. It probably
16:16 becomes incredibly unlikely that the
16:17 American missile defense system would
16:19 ever get to the point where it was good
16:21 enough to rob the Chinese nuclear force
16:23 of its deterrent value. The third point
16:25 is what this might potentially mean for
16:27 the international system of nuclear arms
16:29 control which frankly was already in
16:31 pretty rough shape. With a couple of
16:33 exceptions like the NNPT itself, most of
16:35 the major agreements on things like
16:37 warhead counts and delivery systems have
16:40 been negotiated as bilateral agreements
16:41 either between the United States and
16:43 Soviet Union or the United States and
16:46 Russian Federation. The system wasn't
16:48 designed, frankly, with China as a major
16:50 nuclear player in mind, and there are
16:51 currently no agreements between Beijing
16:53 and Washington restricting things like
16:56 delivery system or warhead count. The
16:57 reason that's potentially problematic is
16:59 because it provides yet another pressure
17:01 on the treaties that do exist. If you're
17:03 the United States and your party to an
17:04 agreement with Russia, which limits your
17:06 warhead count, but China is rapidly
17:08 expanding its forces, then that might
17:10 provide an incentive for you to pull out
17:11 of those agreements so you can build up
17:13 your forces and maintain a level of
17:15 nuclear advantage. With the New START
17:18 agreement due to expire in early 2026,
17:20 that's not an irrelevant consideration.
17:22 If you subscribe to the radical view
17:24 that large scale nuclear buildups are
17:25 generally not a great thing for
17:27 humanity, then that dynamic might be of
17:29 some concern. If you're India for
17:32 example and China builds up its nuclear
17:33 forces to counterbalance the United
17:36 States then from New Delhi's perspective
17:38 the discrepancy between China and
17:39 India's nuclear forces is going to
17:41 widen. That might encourage India to
17:43 invest in increasing its warhead counts
17:45 and diversifying its delivery systems
17:47 which might restore the balance via v
17:49 China somewhat but at the same time it
17:51 would shift the balance between say
17:54 India and Pakistan and so the effects of
17:56 any buildup might ripple out and have an
17:59 impact on global inventories not just
18:01 Chinese ones which brings us back to the
18:03 final point of why this matters. China
18:05 isn't just diversifying and modernizing
18:07 its delivery systems. It is, as we noted
18:10 earlier, adding a lot more warheads. At
18:11 the start of the 2020s, it was estimated
18:14 that China had about 350. Current figure
18:16 is north of 600, and US estimates
18:18 suggest that by 2030, it will be over
18:20 a,000. And while that might give us a
18:21 pretty clear sense of the rate of
18:23 change, it doesn't give us a clear idea
18:26 of where the intended end point is. It's
18:27 clear based on what we saw at the parade
18:29 that China is building towards having a
18:32 very modern, diversified, capable
18:34 nuclear triad. What isn't clear yet is
18:36 just how big they intend that triad to
18:38 be. Moving on from the nuclear to the
18:40 conventional, then let's talk ground
18:42 combat systems. Because over the course
18:45 of the parade, we saw a lot of metal on
18:46 display. At the head of the parade, for
18:48 example, was nothing too radical. A new
18:51 upgrade package for China's Type 99 main
18:52 battle tank. For reasons that'll become
18:54 clear in just a moment, you might think
18:56 of this as the heavy MBT of the Chinese
18:58 military, but it's certainly not heavy
19:00 by Western standards. In its A variant,
19:02 it tipped the scales at about 55 tons,
19:04 more than 10 less than recent model
19:07 LEOs, for example, but notably heavier
19:08 than recent model Russian tanks, at
19:10 least those that didn't have half a
19:12 residential building welded to them.
19:13 That China would continue to upgrade the
19:16 Type 999 isn't surprising. The first
19:17 tanks are believed to have entered
19:20 service in 2001, the first A models in
19:22 2011, and so by global standards, this
19:24 is still a pretty young fleet that the
19:26 PLA is likely to keep in service for
19:27 years to come. But while this might be
19:29 one of the newer main battle tank
19:31 designs globally, it's still distinctly
19:34 a third generation MBT. The layout and
19:35 main gun, for example, aren't that
19:36 different from what you might see on a
19:39 T72. And so at the parade, the tanks
19:41 catching all the attention weren't the
19:43 Type 99s. It was the vehicles behind
19:45 them. This is what China is calling a
19:48 fourth generation MBT, the Type 100. And
19:50 based on what we've been told about its
19:51 features, I'd argue that's probably a
19:53 fair designation. There's no
19:55 international umpire defining exactly
19:57 what does or doesn't make a fourth
19:59 generation main battle tank, but Type
20:01 100 appears to feature a bunch of the
20:02 ones that regularly come up. It has a
20:04 hybrid electric drive system for
20:06 increased fuel efficiency, the ability
20:08 to operate more quietly with the added
20:09 advantage of making it much easier to
20:11 have a lot of electrical energy
20:13 available for any power hungry systems
20:14 that you want to bolt onto the vehicle.
20:16 And in that respect, the vehicle appears
20:18 to be covered in sensors. The crew are
20:19 shown wearing what have been claimed to
20:22 be augmented reality goggles, which is a
20:23 feature we've seen on some Western
20:24 armored vehicles to give crew the
20:27 ability to have essentially a 360° view
20:29 even while within the vehicle. And then
20:31 an interesting combination of offensive,
20:34 defensive, and layout features. In terms
20:36 of layout, the tank appears to have an
20:39 almost T14 ARA style arrangement. An
20:41 unmanned turret and all the crew we did
20:43 see nested in the hull of the vehicle.
20:44 The top of the turret mounts a remote
20:47 weapon station, but also eight tubes for
20:49 China's GL6 active protection system,
20:51 suggesting this might be a vehicle that
20:53 leans comparatively more on active as
20:55 opposed to traditional passive defenses,
20:57 that is its armor. That might be
20:58 particularly relevant because in terms
21:00 of size and weight, it appears Chinese
21:02 designers here have gone for something
21:05 smaller than Type 99. In part because of
21:06 the nature of its terrain, there are
21:07 certainly sections of the Chinese
21:09 frontier where you'd struggle to get a
21:11 full size main battle tank. China is one
21:12 of the major militaries out there that
21:14 currently operates both a main battle
21:17 tank and a light tank. This is China's
21:19 type 15 estimated to weigh somewhere
21:21 between 33 and 36 tons that's believed
21:24 to have entered service in 2018. Type
21:26 100 is generally assessed to be heavier
21:27 than that, somewhere in the 40 ton
21:29 range, but still significantly smaller
21:32 than the heavier type 99. And to confuse
21:34 its position in the main battle tank
21:36 light tank divide even more, the main
21:38 gun appears to be only a 105 millimeter,
21:40 which is significantly smaller than the
21:44 125 mm used by the Type 99, the 120 mm
21:46 used by most NATO tanks, and instead
21:49 more in line with the 105 mm used on the
21:51 Type 15. In that respect, you could
21:53 argue Type 100 appears to kip bash a
21:55 bunch of different ideas together. It's
21:57 in the same weight, range, and firepower
21:59 category as the American M10 Booker. has
22:02 a layout more akin to a T14 Armada and
22:04 the kind of sensors, active protection,
22:06 and information systems that you'll see
22:08 on a bunch of modern western AF
22:10 concepts. And critically, unlike those
22:12 first two, it doesn't appear to have
22:14 been cancelled. Another interesting
22:16 observation about Type 100 is it was
22:18 followed by a second type of vehicle
22:20 that appears to use the same basic hull.
22:22 This is what's being called the Type 100
22:24 support vehicle, and it appears to
22:25 follow essentially an infantry fighting
22:27 vehicle style layout. You have an
22:29 unmanned turret with an autoc cannon
22:31 arament. Again, a bunch of sensors, an
22:33 active protection system, and generally
22:34 a lot of the features you'd expect on a
22:37 modern vehicle design of this type. From
22:38 a manufacturing and sustainment
22:40 standpoint, there are plenty of reasons
22:41 you might want to build multiple types
22:44 of vehicles on the same basic platform.
22:45 The United States plan to do it with
22:47 their future combat systems program.
22:50 Russia plan to do it with the T14. The
22:52 Israelis currently do this with their
22:55 heavy Namir APC based on the Murda 4
22:57 tank chassis and the PLA appears to be
22:58 trying to do it with these two new
23:00 middleweight armored vehicles. On seeing
23:02 these vehicles, there's a few immediate
23:04 questions that stand out. There are
23:06 obvious ones around questions of exact
23:08 technical maturity or how many have been
23:09 built so far, but I think the more
23:11 interesting ones for me are going to be
23:14 doctrinal. Who gets these? you already
23:16 have units that get the regular MBTs or
23:18 the lighter type 15. So, I think it'll
23:20 be interesting to see who the ultimate
23:22 customer for this mobile protected fire
23:24 system if you're from the US Army or
23:26 medium tank if you're anyone else
23:28 ultimately turns out to be. Much less
23:30 ambiguous, I'd argue, is who the
23:31 ultimate customers for the next category
23:33 of vehicles are going to be because we
23:35 also saw the PLA show off three next
23:38 generation airborne AFS. So, I think
23:39 it's fair to suggest those will go to
23:41 the section of the Chinese military
23:42 that's happy to throw people and
23:44 equipment out the back of perfectly
23:46 functional aircraft. Now, before we look
23:48 at the vehicles themselves, there's an
23:50 important piece of context to note here.
23:52 The PLA's airborne forces already have
23:55 an airdropable if you can see it on the
23:57 right there. It's a very light BMD style
24:00 vehicle designation ZBD03.
24:02 By the armor and weight standards of
24:05 military vehicles, the Type03 isn't that
24:06 many steps removed from a particularly
24:09 angry go-kart. The weight's about 8
24:11 tons. The primary arm is a 30 mm cannon.
24:13 And like the Russian BMD, the protection
24:15 scheme against anything larger than
24:18 small arms is primarily based on a thick
24:20 shell of hopes and dreams. But more than
24:22 a decade after the Chinese Airborne got
24:25 their first Type 03s, the PLA started to
24:28 receive this thing, the Y20. This is the
24:30 PLA strategic airlifter, a rough
24:32 equivalent to the Boeing C17. And while
24:34 its introduction has had major
24:35 implications for the lift capacity of
24:37 the Chinese force overall, for the
24:39 Airborne specifically, it opens up the
24:41 option of lifting and potentially
24:43 dropping larger and heavier vehicles.
24:45 That perhaps goes some way to explaining
24:47 why the new airborne vehicles we saw at
24:49 the parade look a bit heavier and
24:51 chunkier than the old Type 03. In this
24:53 case, we saw three distinct vehicle
24:55 types, again, seemingly based on a
24:57 common chassis. There was what looked
24:59 like an IFV style variant with an autoc
25:01 cannon arament, active protection
25:02 system, missile system, and a bunch of
25:05 sensors. A dedicated APC variant that
25:07 appears to sacrifice firepower
25:09 potentially for more internal volume for
25:10 additional troops. And finally, what
25:12 appears to be a gun mortar variant.
25:14 Think an airdropable artillery vehicle
25:17 in the style the Russian 2S9. As at time
25:19 of recording, I haven't seen Chinese
25:21 media release designations for these
25:23 vehicles, but I do think it's
25:24 interesting to look at these vehicles
25:26 and the Chinese decision to show them
25:28 off in the context of some of what we've
25:30 seen out of the war in Ukraine. There,
25:32 Russia's airdropable AFS have had a very
25:34 difficult time as lightly protected
25:37 vehicles packed the gills with ammo.
25:39 They tend to blow up a lot from an
25:41 engineering perspective. In order to
25:43 make a vehicle that you can airdrop, you
25:44 have to make some pretty stark
25:46 sacrifices. In the context of the war in
25:48 Ukraine, then where Russia's
25:50 paratroopers have spent the overwhelming
25:52 majority of their time acting as elite
25:54 infantry, not jumping out the back of
25:56 helicopters or cargo planes behind the
25:57 lines. There's an argument to suggest
25:59 they would have been better off if
26:00 they've been issued with heavier stuff
26:02 like BMPs from the very start. Looking
26:04 at these Chinese vehicles, if they are
26:06 airdropable, it's doubtful the armor is
26:08 particularly thick. But you can still
26:09 see signs the designers might have
26:11 invested effort in trying to reduce that
26:13 vulnerability at least a little with the
26:15 big difference being the mounting of
26:17 that active protection system. That
26:18 might not stop the vehicle being
26:20 penetrated if it is hit by an anti-arm
26:22 munition or something like an FPV drone,
26:24 but it might be enough to stop the first
26:26 or second attempt actually making it to
26:28 the vehicle in the first place.
26:30 Regardless of how the Chinese GL6 APS
26:32 ultimately ends up performing, I suspect
26:33 that when it comes to future armored
26:35 vehicle design, we'll see more and more
26:37 reliance placed by designers on these
26:39 kind of active systems. Whether you're
26:40 talking about drones and laing
26:43 munitions, indirect fires, or top attack
26:46 munitions like ATGMs, it's increasingly
26:47 clear, I'd argue, that if you want to
26:48 design an armored vehicle that's
26:50 survivable on a modern battlefield, it's
26:53 not enough to just protect the front.
26:54 You need to worry about protecting all
26:56 hemispheres. And if you try and do that
26:58 just with slabs of passive armor, the
27:00 weight tax might just not be workable.
27:03 APS obviously have their disadvantages.
27:04 They can be expensive, and I've never
27:06 seen a slab of armor plate run out of
27:08 ammunition. But what we saw at the
27:10 parade certainly seems to suggest the
27:12 PLA sees some serious potential here.
27:13 There were other vehicles that were
27:15 showed off we could go through,
27:16 including a full suite of amphibious
27:18 armored vehicles, but by now that's
27:20 probably enough to make out a couple of
27:22 common themes. A lot of the armored
27:23 vehicles we saw tend to belong to common
27:25 families with multiple variants, place
27:27 an emphasis on tactical and strategic
27:29 mobility, incorporate active defense
27:32 systems, and often significant sensor
27:34 suites, unmanned turrets, remote weapon
27:36 stations, and a variety of similar
27:37 features we've seen pop up in a lot of
27:40 Western next generation AF concepts, but
27:42 not necessarily make their way onto a
27:43 huge range of vehicles that have
27:46 actually reached mass production. Not
27:48 every vehicle shown had those features,
27:49 obviously. The wheeled amphibious
27:51 vehicles we saw, for example, seem to
27:53 incorporate man turrets and no obvious
27:55 active protection system. But I'd
27:56 suggest what we did see in terms of
27:58 those features was notable enough. And
28:00 in that respect, I'd argue we're seeing
28:01 signs of Chinese armored vehicle
28:03 designers not just trying to keep up
28:05 with global development trends, but also
28:07 playing a role in pushing them forward
28:09 as well. From a planning perspective,
28:11 seeing vehicles like this also might
28:13 have implications. If you're a potential
28:14 Chinese competitor, you may have to
28:16 adjust your assumptions about where the
28:18 PLA can project certain types of armored
28:20 vehicles like main battle tanks and how
28:22 much combat power the units equipped
28:23 with them can potentially bring to the
28:25 table. A type 100 slogging it out with
28:28 the likes of M1 A2 SEV3 would be a very
28:29 different proposition, for example, if
28:31 it turned up in an area of operations
28:33 where most of its opponents were lighter
28:34 vehicles. Similarly, a new family of
28:36 airborne vehicles, if mass-produced and
28:38 deployed, would have a potential impact
28:39 on the combat power of China's
28:41 paratroopers, especially if those
28:43 vehicles have an effective active
28:45 protection system and are primarily
28:47 dealing with opposing forces reliant on
28:49 manportable anti-tank weapons. Think
28:52 ATGMs or shoulder fired rockets that APS
28:54 might be optimized to try and defeat.
28:56 and serious investments in that area
28:58 might demonstrate that Chinese military
29:00 leadership still very much value the
29:01 role they believe that airborne forces
29:03 might play in any potential future conflict.
29:05 conflict.
29:06 Of course, as the war in Ukraine is
29:08 arguably demonstrated, if you want your
29:10 shiny new armored vehicles or unarmored
29:12 vehicles or anything really to survive
29:14 on the modern battlefield, you really
29:16 need to have an answer for the drone and
29:18 load ammunition threat. One that
29:19 probably goes beyond just mounting an
29:21 APS with a couple of shots on most of
29:23 your armored vehicles. And while Chinese
29:25 forces obviously haven't been directly
29:27 fighting that war, you'd expect the PLA
29:29 to be very familiar with drones, the
29:31 threat they pose, and what they can do.
29:33 As of last year, the People's Republic
29:35 of China was the largest global producer
29:38 of civilian drones. The DJI Mavic has
29:39 been an absolute workhorse of the
29:41 tactical ISR function for both sides
29:43 during the war in Ukraine. And even as
29:45 Russia and Ukraine moved to ramp up
29:46 their production of their own domestic
29:48 drones, often that was with a
29:50 significant input of Chinese components.
29:52 The point is that through Chinese
29:55 industry, the PLA has access to a lot of
29:57 drone related talent. And we've seen
29:59 evidence that the PLA is leveraging that
30:01 talent in two directions. By becoming a
30:03 major adopter of military drones on one
30:05 hand, and understanding the importance
30:08 of good counter drones, so CUAS systems
30:10 on the other. And an observation I'd
30:11 raise out of this parade and other
30:13 things we've seen from the PLA is that
30:15 when it comes to picking a technological
30:18 winner, as far as CO solutions go, so
30:20 far, it basically looks like Beijing has
30:22 selected the all of the above option. We
30:24 saw a variety of new radars and sensors
30:27 that might help detect incoming threats.
30:28 electronic warfare systems that might be
30:30 effective against a lot of drones,
30:31 although obviously not those with things
30:33 like fiber optic cable connections and
30:35 then a full suite of hard kill systems
30:37 that might be able to deal with those
30:40 more stubborn targets. We saw what
30:41 appears to be a large high-powered
30:43 microwave system, which if you remember
30:45 the episode on directed energy weapons,
30:47 might be used to essentially fry the
30:49 electronics of an incoming threat. China
30:51 showed off various HPM systems over
30:52 time, although given the size of the one
30:54 on the right there, it would probably be
30:56 more suitable for defending fixed
30:58 installations or operating in rear areas
31:00 than as a maneuvering frontline asset.
31:02 It's notably significantly larger than
31:04 some of the systems we've seen showed
31:06 off by the United Kingdom, the US
31:08 Marines, or the US Air Force. But when
31:09 it comes to the directed energy weapons,
31:12 as with so many things, size can matter.
31:14 And so, all else being equal, you might
31:16 expect bigger system to translate into
31:18 bigger ZAP. One thing that really makes
31:20 HPM stand out as a potential anti- drone
31:22 option is they're essentially areaof
31:24 effect weapons. In Ukraine, you might
31:26 see a lot of FPVs or loading munitions
31:28 attacking in ones or twos, but I think
31:30 the expectation has to be in future that
31:32 you'll see more and more drone swarms,
31:34 formations of drones talking to each
31:36 other, acting together, and potentially
31:38 overwhelming whatever sort of defenses a
31:41 target might have. With the HPM, you
31:42 don't need to target an individual
31:44 drone. You don't necessarily even need
31:46 to be able to see an individual drone.
31:48 You just get to pick an area of sky and
31:50 declare it a drone-free zone. That
31:53 sounds great, but it can't really be an
31:54 acrosstheboard short-range air defense
31:56 solution. For one, while it can be
31:58 expensive, there are options to harden
32:01 targets against HPM attack. And at the
32:02 other end of the spectrum, frying the
32:05 brains of a target system doesn't work
32:07 if the target is sufficiently dumb. For
32:08 example, good luck jamming the guidance
32:11 system on an unguided shell or rocket.
32:13 But ammunition that might not care about
32:15 HPM attack might still care about bits
32:17 of it starting to melt, which is where
32:19 the PLA's high energy lasers probably
32:22 come in. Just as with HPMs, China is
32:24 believed to have a variety of HL systems
32:26 either in service or development.
32:28 They've exported laser systems,
32:30 including to Saudi Arabia. And there is
32:31 video out there claiming to be of at
32:33 least one Chinese laser system being
32:36 used against Ukrainian drones in Russia.
32:38 Compared to HPMs, lasers can only engage
32:40 one target at a time. Plus, they can be
32:42 a bit picky when it comes to weather
32:43 conditions, but because they're
32:45 imparting thermal energy, they can
32:47 potentially be effective against a wider
32:49 array of targets. There's a reason the
32:50 US Army wants to use a mobile laser
32:52 system to shoot down incoming artillery
32:55 rounds, not a HPM. At the parade, China
32:57 actually showed off multiple laser
32:58 systems. You can see a lighter example
33:00 on the right there. But the one I really
33:02 want to focus on here is this thing,
33:05 designated the LY1. According to Chinese
33:08 media, this somewhat beefy laser system
33:10 is primarily intended for naval use.
33:12 Ships generally make pretty attractive
33:14 directed energy weapon platforms because
33:16 factors like weight, energy generation,
33:17 and cooling are likely going to be less
33:19 of a problem for them than they would
33:21 for something like an aircraft or an
33:22 armored vehicle. And in that respect,
33:24 LY1 would fit in pretty well with some
33:26 of the other naval laser programs we're
33:28 seen experimented with around the world.
33:30 Think Dragon Fire for the United Kingdom
33:32 or Helios and other programs for the
33:34 United States Navy. But the way this
33:36 laser was displayed has led some
33:38 analysts to suggest it might be intended
33:40 for ground use as well. If Beijing just
33:41 wanted to show off the emitter, then
33:43 like some of the naval weapons we saw
33:45 elsewhere in the parade, it would have
33:46 been simple enough just to stick it on
33:48 the back of a truck and call it a day.
33:49 While this vehicle you can see it
33:51 displayed on appears incredibly large
33:53 enough to mount the kind of generators
33:55 and systems necessary to actually
33:57 operate a laser. That wouldn't be
33:59 without precedent. Multiple nations,
34:00 including Israel and the United States,
34:03 have tested mobile laser systems. But
34:04 this would certainly be on the larger
34:07 side compared to the likes of America's
34:09 striker mounted de Shorad. Obviously
34:11 with a large unarmored vehicle like
34:12 that, you're probably not looking at a
34:15 system you'd expect to see doing donuts
34:17 near the front line of Donetsk. But
34:19 defending high value infrastructure or
34:21 targets well behind the front lines
34:23 maybe. But if you're in a scenario where
34:25 the Star Wars solution to your CO
34:26 challenge won't work, there's always the
34:28 old school method of hitting something
34:30 with high-speed bits of metal until it
34:31 stops moving in ways you don't want it
34:33 to. To that end, we saw a bunch of
34:35 kinetic cos options running all the way
34:38 up the spectrum from APS and RWS on the
34:40 regular armored vehicles to dedicated
34:42 shorad platforms that included rather
34:44 typical self-propelled anti-aircraft gun
34:46 concepts where you have a gun system
34:47 paired with the radar and other sensors
34:49 necessary to point it where it needs to
34:50 point. But the modern trend for some
34:52 time has been to often pair a gun
34:54 system, which might have the advantage
34:56 of things like flexibility and cheaper
34:57 ammunition, with one or more different
35:00 types of missile system. Both larger
35:01 ones that you might use against targets
35:03 like fixedwing aircraft or helicopters,
35:05 and then also smaller, cheaper ones that
35:07 you might use specifically against small
35:09 drones. To illustrate, I've got some
35:10 examples up on the right there,
35:12 including a Russian Pansier and a
35:14 version of the German Sky Ranger 30. And
35:16 the US has systems like Vampire which
35:18 has been exported to Ukraine which gives
35:20 you a ground launched options for the
35:23 APKWS guided rockets. For their part,
35:25 China showed off this thing. This is a
35:27 wheeled vehicle which has been commonly
35:29 referred to as the FK 3000 which just
35:31 like some of the other systems out there
35:33 combines a gun with anti- drone
35:35 missiles. The difference being it's a
35:37 lot of anti- drone missiles. In total,
35:39 the vehicle mounts 24 box launchers. And
35:41 while it's difficult to see from that
35:43 photo, up close it looks like each of
35:45 those boxes is divided into four launch
35:47 cells. Potentially giving every vehicle
35:51 a magazine of 96 missiles on tap. If you
35:52 think you might be defending against one
35:55 or two drones, 96 interceptors per
35:58 vehicle is probably overkill. But if you
35:59 anticipate a future battlefield that's
36:01 absolutely infested with small drones
36:03 and laundering munitions, then maybe
36:05 that kind of loadout starts to make
36:07 sense. So what does all that mean? And
36:08 why does this potentially matter? I
36:10 think the big point here is that China
36:11 is very clearly taking the drone and
36:13 lamun munition threat very seriously.
36:15 They're not just coming up with one
36:16 countermeasure. They're coming up with a
36:17 bunch of them, integrating them to
36:19 different parts of the force, which all
36:21 else being equal makes it less likely
36:22 that the system has a single failure
36:24 point or the enemy is able to adapt to a
36:26 single system and make the overall force
36:28 vulnerable. The potential implication
36:30 there is it might be more difficult for
36:32 potential opponents of the PLA to rely
36:34 on drones and loader munitions as a kind
36:36 of hard counter. You might see scenarios
36:38 where drones are still very effective on
36:39 the battlefield, especially as they
36:41 continue to evolve. But if the
36:42 countermeasures catch up and the other
36:44 capabilities are there, they might not
36:46 be as dominant as we see in Ukraine.
36:48 From an investment perspective, there
36:49 also appears to be a degree of risk
36:51 mitigation and future proofing going on
36:53 here. Beijing isn't putting all their
36:55 eggs in one particular CAS basket.
36:57 They're investing across multiple lines
36:59 of effort and multiple technologies.
37:01 Although obviously only time will tell
37:02 how these various defense measures are
37:04 deployed, how they work in practice, at
37:06 what scale they're produced, and how
37:08 well they can deal with not just the way
37:09 the drone threat looks now, but the way
37:12 it looks in 5, 10, or 20 years. As with
37:14 so many military's counter drone
37:15 efforts, the investment and effort is
37:17 very clearly there. The jury is just
37:19 still out on how the technological and
37:22 doctrinal arms race will play out.
37:24 From little things that fly, I next want
37:26 to pivot to big things that fly.
37:27 Specifically with a couple of notes
37:30 about Chinese carrier aviation. While
37:31 internet debates over whether or not the
37:33 carrier is obsolete in an era of
37:35 longrange drones, hypersonics, and
37:36 anti-hship ballistic missiles will
37:38 obviously rage on, the signals we're
37:40 getting out of China definitely seem to
37:42 suggest the People's Liberation Army
37:44 Navy doesn't think so. And the theme I
37:45 wanted to raise here is China moving
37:48 from a country that has carriers, which
37:50 is a pretty wide club that includes
37:52 countries like Russia and India to a
37:54 country that has all the components
37:55 necessary to put together an
37:58 Americanstyle carrier airwing. Because
38:00 as a tool of effective power projection,
38:02 the carrier itself is just one piece of
38:04 the puzzle. Make no mistake, it's a
38:06 piece that China now has and is likely
38:08 to have more of in the future with the
38:10 type 03 carrier in the water and the
38:13 type 04 reported in the pipeline, which
38:14 might by some reports end up being
38:17 China's first nuclearpowered super
38:18 carrier. But the ability of the carrier
38:20 itself to affect targets is shaped by
38:23 the kind of aircraft it operates. Like
38:26 Russia's KNET, China's previous ski jump
38:28 scale carriers like the Shandong were
38:30 very limited in terms of the kind of
38:31 aircraft they could operate. In both
38:33 cases, you'd have one or more fourth
38:35 generation fighters. J15 for China or
38:38 Sukcoy 33 for Russia, for example. But a
38:40 lot of the other jobs had to be done by
38:42 helicopters. The Russians, for example,
38:44 relied on a Karm 31 helicopter for
38:46 airborne early warning. China's newer,
38:48 larger catapult equipped flat decks give
38:51 them more options. All else being equal,
38:52 you can launch fixedwing aircraft with a
38:54 larger payload if you fling them with a
38:56 catapult rather than relying on the cop
38:58 slope. And the type of aircraft you can
39:00 operate full stop also widens
39:01 considerably. And this parade
39:03 demonstrated many of the elements that
39:05 might make the future Chinese carrier
39:07 airwing look a lot more like their
39:09 American equivalents. The US Navy has a
39:11 fifth generation fighter, the navalized
39:13 version of the F-35. China gave us a
39:16 flyover by their J35, the country's
39:18 second fifth generation fighter and
39:19 likely the first one to be carrier
39:21 capable. Like many of the other elements
39:23 we've gone through today, this wasn't
39:25 really a surprise to us. We've
39:26 previously seen images, for example,
39:29 like this one of J35s with production
39:30 numbers suggesting that they're low rate
39:33 initial production airframes and a very
39:35 prominent shark motif on the tail fin,
39:36 which is something we've also seen
39:39 appear on China's J15 carrier fighters.
39:41 So J35 making its way into the fleet
39:43 wouldn't be unexpected, but it would
39:46 bring China into the very elite club of
39:47 countries that have a fifth generation
39:50 fighter on their carriers. The US Navy
39:51 also operates a dedicated electronic
39:53 warfare platform off its carriers, the
39:56 EA18 Growler, basically the EW version
39:58 of the Super Hornet. But we've
39:59 previously seen Beijing show off an
40:02 electronic warfare version of the J15,
40:03 which China's Ministry of National
40:06 Defense described back in November 2024
40:08 as being quote tasked with performing
40:10 electronic warfare operations similar in
40:12 broad form and function to the United
40:15 States Navy's EA18 Growler end quote.
40:17 thus expanding that naval aviation
40:19 toolkit even wider. And then finally at
40:21 the parade, we saw the public reveal of
40:23 another carrierbased system. Unlike the
40:25 Russians who have to rely on helicopters
40:27 for the job, countries like France and
40:29 the United States have dedicated
40:31 carrierbased early warning aircraft. In
40:33 their case, that's the E2-D Hawkeye,
40:34 which is obviously going to be able to
40:36 fly further and mount significantly more
40:39 powerful sensors than any helicopter. At
40:41 the parade, the Chinese appeared to show
40:43 off their entry into this carrierbased
40:44 airborne early warning and control
40:46 category. On the top right there, I have
40:48 an image of the American Hawkeye. And on
40:50 the bottom, the brand new and totally
40:53 original Chinese KJ600. Now, this may
40:55 not be a case where the Chinese aviation
40:58 sector wins any awards for originality.
40:59 But I'd also say from a strictly
41:02 military perspective, that's essentially
41:04 irrelevant. Hawkeye is a proven design
41:06 that works well, that's been flying from
41:08 catapult equipped carriers for decades.
41:10 The first A2s entered service back in
41:12 the 1960s, and in its latest versions,
41:15 it's still very much going strong. And
41:16 so, if you're a Navy that's moving into
41:18 the world of catapult equipped carriers
41:20 for the first time, perhaps it makes a
41:22 degree of engineering sense not to try
41:24 and reinvent the wheel, or in this case,
41:26 reinvent the flying radar system that
41:27 can deal with the rigors of carrier
41:29 operation. The core point is that
41:31 Chinese carrier air groups in the future
41:33 are likely to have a fixedwing sensor
41:34 platform that they can launch and
41:37 recover with all the benefits in terms
41:38 of awareness and command and control
41:41 that that kind of system brings. I think
41:42 it's also fair to assume that future
41:44 Chinese carrier air groupoups are going
41:45 to benefit from a lot of the unmanned
41:47 system development going on as well.
41:49 China showed off a variety of quite
41:50 large UK cavs, some which incorporated
41:52 stealth features and appeared designed
41:54 for supersonic flight that mirrors some
41:56 of the developments we've seen globally
41:58 towards so-called loyal wingman style
42:00 drones or CCAs in American parliament
42:03 where you might have large drones intend
42:05 to operate alongside the man fighters.
42:06 And indeed, while it's not linked to
42:08 carrier aviation, they also showed off
42:10 one other thing that I want to mention
42:12 because it represents a kind of global
42:14 first. This is the new two seat variant
42:17 of China's J20 Mighty Dragon. There's a
42:19 common feature across all the other
42:20 relevant fifth generation fighters out
42:25 there. F-35, F-22, J20, J35, Sukcoy 57
42:27 for Russia if you're feeling generous.
42:29 They're all single seaters. I generally
42:30 agree with a lot of the analysis out
42:32 there saying this probably isn't for
42:34 training purposes. China, the United
42:36 States, and all the F-35 operators out
42:37 there seem to have had no trouble
42:38 training plenty of pilots on those
42:40 platforms without a two-seater version
42:42 available. But I can imagine plenty of
42:44 reasons you might want to add a Wizo, a
42:46 weapon systems officer, to the second
42:47 seat of a fighter like this one. If your
42:50 intention is to have man J20s operating
42:52 alongside a bunch of unmanned platforms,
42:53 then you might get some benefit adding
42:55 some two-seaters into a formation so you
42:57 can have the second crew member help
42:59 manage all of those unmanned platforms.
43:01 Cognitive overload is a thing. And while
43:03 sensor fusion and mechanical assistance
43:05 might go some way towards alleviating
43:07 the problem, the PLAF might be taking
43:09 the view that sometimes the best
43:11 solution to a problem is simply another
43:13 pair of hands. The core point here is
43:13 that whether you're talking about
43:15 groundbased aviation or the carrier
43:17 fleet, we're starting to see Beijing
43:19 bring together all the pieces of a next
43:22 generation peer level capability. A new
43:24 generation of aircraft, drones to
43:26 support them, missiles for them to fire,
43:28 and critical enablers like Awax,
43:30 tankers, and electronic warfare aircraft
43:33 to support their operations. The so what
43:34 factor for the carrier fleet
43:36 specifically is that China is quite
43:38 predictably building up towards having a
43:40 mature diversified naval airfleet. One
43:42 that has a lot of the same types of
43:45 tools as the US Navy and thus one which
43:47 over time might have a greater and
43:48 greater ability to project power
43:50 overseas. Bluewater carrier operations
43:52 aren't a simple thing and not the kind
43:54 of national capability you can build up
43:56 overnight. But China hasn't been
43:58 building this capability overnight.
44:00 They've incrementally pieced it together
44:02 over the course of decades. It started
44:03 with the purchase of a rustedout old
44:05 Soviet carrier that gave them an
44:07 opportunity to practice the basics. From
44:08 there, they first built a copy of the
44:11 Soviet style ship, then the Type 03 that
44:12 went well beyond anything the Soviet
44:14 Union or the Russian Federation has ever
44:16 produced, and we should expect the next
44:17 ships in the fleet to continue to push
44:19 that evolution ever further. China's
44:21 carrier force is still obviously a long
44:23 way from being a direct peer of the US
44:25 Navy. But I think the parade provides
44:26 another bit of evidence of just how
44:29 quickly they're narrowing that gap. And
44:30 I half jokingly expect that if you're
44:32 one of the people in the US Navy whose
44:34 job it is to lobby Congress for funding
44:36 for the Navy's next generation fighter
44:38 program, demonstrations like this one
44:40 probably make your job ever so slightly
44:42 easier. In terms of why this might
44:43 matter, while a lot of the public
44:45 analysis tends to focus on the role of
44:47 the Chinese Navy in any large-scale
44:49 conflict against a peer opponent, that's
44:51 not at the core of the reason I chose to
44:52 give a segment over to carrier aviation
44:54 this episode, rather than things like
44:56 China's new air defense systems or the
44:58 various anti-hship missiles it showed
45:00 off, both of which might be highly
45:02 relevant in that kind of scenario. What
45:04 carrier aviation might offer, however,
45:05 that many of those other assets can't,
45:08 is the ability to project power. We've
45:09 seen for decades that whenever there's
45:11 an event that pops up anywhere in the
45:12 world that the United States wants to
45:14 tip one way or the other, one of the
45:16 tools it often turns to is the ability
45:18 to cruise 100,000 tons of American
45:20 sovereign territory off the coast of the
45:22 flash point in question and then use the
45:24 presence of all that striking power to
45:26 shape how events unfold. The People's
45:27 Liberation Army Navy is still a
45:29 significant way off from being able to
45:30 project carrier groups around the world
45:33 in the way the United States Navy can.
45:35 But between new carriers, new aircraft,
45:37 and greater experience operating them,
45:38 it's clear they're getting closer to
45:40 having that kind of great power tool
45:42 available to them. And time will tell
45:43 how that capability and with it
45:45 Beijing's ability to influence events in
45:48 its region and beyond ultimately evolves
45:50 in the years to come. But as we get
45:51 towards the end of this episode, I want
45:53 to move the focus away from individual
45:55 pieces of equipment and instead zoom out
45:57 a bit and dawn, if you like, the defense
45:59 economics hat. From that perspective,
46:01 I'd argue debating the exact readiness
46:03 or capabilities of any individual piece
46:05 of PLA equipment is obviously important,
46:07 but I don't think it should ever come at
46:08 a cost of acknowledging the broader
46:10 trend here. That in the 21st century,
46:12 the PLA has been succeeding in
46:14 modernizing its equipment at an
46:16 extraordinary rate. This is a force that
46:18 in a relatively short period has gone
46:19 from being reliant on derivatives of the
46:22 Soviet MIG 21 to becoming the second
46:24 country on the planet to design and
46:26 mass-produce a fifth generation fighter.
46:28 And while the transformation of the
46:29 overall force clearly isn't complete
46:32 yet, that wasn't Beijing's stated goal.
46:34 Those tended to focus on a much longer
46:37 timeline, modernizing the force by 2035
46:39 and becoming a worldclass military power
46:41 capable of fighting and winning wars by
46:44 2049. And if we're trying to project how
46:46 likely it is that the PLA is going to
46:48 maintain momentum towards those goals, I
46:49 think it's important to acknowledge some
46:51 of the defense industrial advantages
46:52 they're working with and what sets a
46:55 country like China apart from, for
46:57 example, Russia. If you're looking at
46:58 the process of equipment modernization
47:00 in a very general sense, there's a
47:02 couple of places that countries can
47:03 encounter bottlenecks. If you want to do
47:05 it with your own material, you need to
47:07 have the technical talent necessary to
47:09 develop equipment that works, the funds
47:11 necessary to drive that process and then
47:13 procure it. And then you need to have
47:15 the industrial capacity necessary to
47:17 build and deliver it. Fall over at any
47:18 of those gates or any of the milestones
47:21 in between and you can run into trouble.
47:23 Russia, for example, especially pre2022,
47:26 had a lot of military technical talent.
47:27 It inherited a lot of knowhow and
47:29 infrastructure from the Soviet Union,
47:31 and it's very clear if you look across a
47:33 range of Russian defense projects that
47:34 they don't have any difficulty coming up
47:36 with interesting ideas and concepts.
47:38 What's desperately missing is the
47:40 funding necessary to actually refine
47:42 those designs and the industrial
47:44 capacity necessary to actually build
47:46 them, especially without reliance on
47:48 imported components. Meanwhile, if you
47:49 look at various NATO states, there are
47:51 plenty of designs out there that in
47:52 terms of their raw performance are
47:54 absolute world beaters. The technical
47:56 talent is very much there and compared
47:58 to Russia, often there's going to be a
48:00 lot more funding available. And so, in
48:02 some cases, the bottleneck and a major
48:05 cost driver becomes industrial capacity.
48:06 The US Navy, for example, has a
48:08 fantastic submarine design in the form
48:10 of the Virginia class. They want more of
48:12 them. They're spending a lot of money on
48:14 them, but the shipyards and contractors
48:16 just can't turn the boats out as quickly
48:18 as the Navy or Congress might want them
48:20 to. That's not to say that every NATO
48:21 design is a good one, that funding is
48:24 infinite, or that industrial capacity is
48:25 always a problem. But whether you're
48:28 talking about submarines or 155 mm
48:30 shells, over the last couple of years,
48:32 industrial capacity has often been a
48:34 barrier to NATO militaries modernizing
48:36 or moving as fast as they'd like. Hence,
48:37 some of the serious investments we've
48:40 seen in trying to rebuild the base. In
48:41 the People's Republic of China, though,
48:43 I'd argue the bottlenecks are often
48:45 going to be different. This is the
48:47 world's largest manufacturing state, its
48:49 largest ship builder, the producer of
48:51 the majority of the world's steel, a
48:52 country that dominates the refining
48:54 process for many critical materials, and
48:56 which routinely leverages massive
48:58 economies of scale when it comes to
48:59 turning out product. To give you a sense
49:01 of scale here, by World Bank estimates,
49:03 there are more Chinese industrial
49:05 workers than there are Russians. all
49:07 Russians. Compared to countries like the
49:09 United States, Germany, or even India,
49:11 domestic consumption makes up a smaller
49:14 overall proportion of China's GDP, with
49:15 more of it instead being made up of
49:17 investments and exports. That kind of
49:19 economic structure does come with
49:21 potential risks. Compared to other
49:22 countries, China is going to be more
49:24 reliant on foreign consumers to soak up
49:26 its production of goods, especially in
49:28 cases where Chinese industries arguably
49:30 move into a state of over capacity.
49:32 China is producing so many EVs, for
49:34 example, relative to domestic demand
49:36 that it's causing price wars so vicious
49:38 that they've drawn the attention of the
49:39 central government and pushed Chinese
49:41 manufacturers to try and export as many
49:43 of their vehicles as possible. To
49:45 oversimplify, in some industries,
49:46 China's problem might not be that it
49:48 doesn't have enough capacity to produce
49:50 stuff, it might be that it has too much
49:52 capacity. But while having a bunch of
49:54 slack industrial capacity in the economy
49:56 might not be great if the goal is to be
49:57 as efficient as possible with your
49:59 investments, it might be potentially
50:00 very useful if at any point you decide
50:03 you want to dial up military production.
50:04 The same way we've seen some companies
50:06 in Germany, for example, take advantage
50:08 of excess capacity from the automotive
50:10 sector in order to support the rebuild
50:12 of Europe's military capacity. The
50:14 highle observation then here for China
50:15 might be that when it comes to military
50:18 modernization, the difficult part comes
50:20 earlier in the process. If you see
50:21 Russia show off a new concept vehicle,
50:23 it's a massively open question whether
50:24 the funding will be there and the
50:26 industrial capacity will be there to
50:28 convert concept into combat power. But
50:30 when you're talking about China, the
50:32 defense budget has increased 13 times
50:34 over over the last three decades. And
50:36 once they've successfully designed a
50:37 piece of equipment and figured out how
50:39 to manufacture it, the industrial
50:40 capacity might be there to basically
50:42 just hit print on the system the way
50:44 that few, if any, other countries can.
50:45 I've got some charts on the right here
50:47 from a CSIS report that can demonstrate
50:50 how that might flow through in practice.
50:51 As you can see, in terms of hull count,
50:53 the People's Liberation Army Navy is
50:55 expanding extremely quickly to the point
50:56 where it now has more ships, albeit not
50:59 tonnage, than the US Navy, and by some
51:01 US projections might have as many as 50%
51:04 more ships by 2030. In terms of its
51:06 fighter force, China has been able to
51:08 accomplish both modernization and
51:10 expansion at the same time. Per the
51:13 IISS, in 2010, a plurality of the
51:15 PLAAF's fighter force was second
51:18 generation aircraft. Less than 15 years
51:20 later, fifth generation fighters had
51:22 been introduced, and the backbone of the
51:23 fleet was now fourth generation or
51:25 better. So, I'd argue that when China
51:27 shows off new systems, it's worth paying
51:29 attention. Because while not every idea
51:31 will work out, perform as advertised, or
51:33 be deployed at scale, when the PLA locks
51:36 in on a system they want to prioritize,
51:38 Chinese industry can move quickly and at
51:40 scale. Meaning that if you're a country
51:41 that's a potential Chinese competitor,
51:43 the critical question might not just be
51:46 what is the PLA capable of today. It's
51:49 what will it be capable of next year, in
51:51 5 years, or a decade from now. And as
51:53 choreographed as they might be, parades
51:54 like this one might give us just a
51:56 little bit of insight into that precise question.
51:58 question.
51:59 There are obviously still plenty of
52:01 question marks around how the PLA would
52:03 actually perform if it found itself in a
52:05 high-intensity combat situation. And as
52:06 we repeatedly discussed on the channel,
52:08 there are a lot of elements that go into
52:10 the fighting power of a military beyond
52:11 just the quantity and quality of its
52:13 equipment. But through a defense
52:15 economic specific lens, the PLA
52:17 modernization effort has a lot going for
52:19 it. With a lot of the funding, human,
52:21 and physical capital necessary to get it
52:23 re-equipped. And so unless something
52:25 dramatic changes, I'd suggest that
52:27 Chinese military modernization isn't a
52:30 what if, it's a how far and how fast.
52:32 And okay, brief channel update to close
52:33 out because at this point my voice is
52:35 starting to go. I'm it's a slightly
52:37 shorter episode this week, but I didn't
52:38 want to make it longer than it needed to
52:40 be. And with it having been a very
52:41 packed week, it also helped make things
52:43 just that little bit easier for me as
52:45 well. My plan at this point is having
52:46 talked this week about some of the stuff
52:48 that China showed off to next week pivot
52:50 to some of what got showed off at DSI in
52:52 the United Kingdom and with it some of
52:53 the concepts and technologies we're
52:55 seeing showed off by other parts of the
52:57 defense sector, particularly companies
52:59 based in Europe, North America or parts
53:01 of the Asia-Pacific. A major point I
53:03 wanted to push forward this episode is
53:05 that we are now a long way removed from
53:06 the era where China was primarily a
53:09 country that duplicated military
53:10 technology from the Soviet Union or
53:13 Russian Federation. It's now entirely
53:14 capable of developing and fielding its
53:16 own, in many cases quite capable
53:18 systems. But while developments are
53:20 moving forward in China, the rest of the
53:22 world is very much not standing still.
53:24 And so next week, I hope to give you a
53:25 bit of insight into what some other
53:27 nations are cooking up. Until then,
53:29 thank you very much as always for your
53:30 ongoing support and engagement. And with
53:33 any luck, I hope to see you all again
