On September 3, China held a grand military parade in Beijing. Western media, such as the BBC, immediately focused on the ballistic missiles, hyping up the “China threat”, while Trump, seeing Putin and Kim Jong-un attending the parade, immediately claimed this was “conspiring against the US”.

Regarding such rhetoric, Chinese strategist Professor Wang Xiangsui pointed out that this shows the West not only failed to decode the signals from China’s parade, but also lacks common sense about historical and contemporary global development trends. The true signals Beijing sent through this parade are far more profound than the West’s fabricated narrative – and something it desperately needs to comprehend.

1. This is not intimidation against America, but retribution for American arrogance and brutality

In this military parade, 84% of the equipment was displayed for the first time. During a live CNN broadcast, their television commentators could not provide any information about the new weapons, couldn’t even name them, and could only vaguely say “these are China’s new missiles … sort of” appearing very unprofessional.

This exposed that the West was completely unprepared and caught off guard by the speed of China’s defense technology development. Faced with an arsenal of cutting-edge Chinese equipment that the US military is still only conceptualizing or has never even heard of, the US media’s response strategy was nothing more than rehashing the old “China threat” narrative, but what they avoid mentioning is that it was the US itself that caused China’s explosive development in weapons and equipment.

At the end of the last century, China joined the WTO, and everyone thought peace and development would become the world’s main theme. To have more funds for economic development, China even conducted large-scale military downsizing of one million personnel. However, in 1999, after the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia was bombed by the US, Beijing realized that imperialist countries still did not hesitate to use force to violate China’s territory, so peace could not be maintained solely through peaceful aspirations – security still had to be protected through the balance of hard power.

China immediately launched a series of defense technology programs, building hypersonic wind tunnel clusters and aerospace and microelectronics research projects. These seeds planted 26 years ago grew under strict military timelines and have now born abundant fruit.

For a nation as young as the United States, with just over 200 years of history, Clinton’s transgressions against China 26 years ago may seem like “ancient history”. But for China, a civilization with five millennia of history, that humiliation feels like it happened just yesterday. That’s why China’s rapid military modernization is simply a response to US actions.

If the US and the West do not wish to see a militarily strong China, or to be outpaced by its advanced weapons, the best course of action is to refrain from provoking China and focus on their own affairs. Having endured a century of humiliation, China will never relinquish its sacred right to self-defense through military strength.

2. This parade conveyed China’s goodwill toward and disappointment with the US

US media often presumptuously assumes that this military parade was aimed at the United States – a narrow-minded perspective born of judging others by one’s own standards. China has an ancient saying: “国之大事在祀与戎” (“The great affairs of state are sacrifice and war”). The West, however, seems to focus only on “war”, overlooking the fact that the full name of the event is the “Commemoration of the 80th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War”, a solemn ceremony honoring the triumph over fascism.

The victory in the Anti-Fascist War was a historic achievement made possible through the collective efforts of China, the Soviet Union, the United States, and all nations that stood firmly against aggression. During World War II, the anti-fascist alliance suffered immensely, with global military and civilian casualties exceeding 70 million. As the main Eastern theater, China endured over 35 million casualties; the Soviet Union, bearing the brunt in Europe, lost approximately 27 million lives; and the United States also sacrificed more than 400,000 people. By commemorating this victory, China also honors the joint struggle waged alongside the American and Russian peoples. Chinese textbooks have never deliberately diminished or erased the crucial role the US played in the Pacific theater. What dismays China, however, is that today’s America – increasingly bound by national interests to Japan – is actively aiding the revival of Japanese militarism, even at the cost of dishonoring its own WWII veterans.

Consider the Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the fiercest engagements fought by the United States in the Pacific. On an island of barely 20 square kilometers, American forces suffered over 26,000 casualties, including nearly 7,000 dead – about one in three of those who landed. The 5th Marine Division alone endured nearly half casualties, the highest rate of any US division in the battle. Yet on March 29 of this year, when US Defense Secretary Hegseth attended a memorial on Iwo Jima for the American war dead, in front of the cenotaph, he honored the “shared warrior ethos” of the Japanese soldiers.

Moreover, in its effort to contain China, the US has acquiesced to Japan, a defeated invader in WWII, developing aircraft carriers and other offensive weapons, and potentially even pursuing nuclear capabilities. This has led China to recognize that the post-WWII international order is severely threatened, particularly when those challenges come from one of its principal architects. It is now clear that the system cannot be restored with minor repairs alone.

As a responsible major power, China must therefore contribute in its own way to creating new stabilizing forces for global peace. Notably, the heads of state attending the military parade were mainly from ASEAN, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation member states, and Belt and Road Initiative partners. Among them, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, despite domestic turmoil, flew overnight to Beijing for the ceremony. This reflects a shared memory of suffering under Japanese fascism and common aspirations for development and security.

China’s consistent diplomatic principle is non-interference in other nations’ internal affairs and a rejection of hegemony. But when ASEAN, BRICS, and Belt and Road countries align with the “Global Governance Initiative” rather than with existing global hegemony, more than half the world’s population and GDP stand on the right side of history. Amidst transformative global changes, China is helping build regional and constructive stability. Should certain countries continue down their destructive path, they will find at least half the world in disagreement.

3. To prevent World War III for all humanity, China is prepared to win any war

In this military parade, beyond the upgrading of its weaponry, Western countries ought to pay closer attention to the debut of China’s Military Aerospace Forces and Cyberspace Forces, a clear reflection of a fundamental shift in China’s strategic assessment: although the hot war of World War III has not yet broken out, unrestricted warfare is already being waged across multiple domains.

From the Westphalian system to the Yalta Conference, new world orders were often forged through iron and blood. Today, however, battles equally capable of reshaping the international landscape are constantly being fought in the arenas of trade, digital cyberspace, and the realm of artificial intelligence.

Terms like “trade war” and “cyber war” once used “war” merely as a metaphor for intensity. Yet when the US and its allies imposed over 20,000 sanctions on Russia in an attempt to dismantle its social order; when the CIA spread computer viruses worldwide to cripple Iran’s nuclear program; when backdoors are embedded within GPU chips to stifle China’s AI development – these acts are no different from open warfare.

In response to such unrestricted tactics from the West, the People’s Liberation Army, while retaining the ultimate means of self-defense, operates under an ancient Chinese principle that offers a more favorable outcome for all in this nuclear age: “不战而屈人之兵” (“to subdue the enemy without fighting”).

In 2023, then-US Pacific Fleet Commander Samuel Paparo boasted about using drones and unmanned vessels to turn the Taiwan Strait into a “hellscape”, openly threatening China with military action. He repeatedly promoted this concept in public forums. Yet by November 2024, while speaking at a Brookings Institution event in Washington, Paparo abruptly conceded that drones alone would be insufficient against the PLA.

What prompted this change of tone? Also in November 2024, at the Zhuhai Airshow, China unveiled the “Jiu Tian” drone carrier, a “mothership” for unmanned systems; the “Orca” large unmanned combat vessel; and displays such as the “Robot Wolf” ground combat system coordinating with drone swarms. These demonstrated the PLA’s mature integrated air-ground unmanned combat capabilities. Clearly, if the Taiwan Strait were to become a “hellscape” of unmanned warfare, it would be the US military – not the technologically, industrially, and systemically superior PLA – that would be cast into that inferno.

Through its display of strength at Zhuhai, China deftly guided Paparo – and by extension, US strategy – back from fantasy to reality, thereby helping consolidate peace and stability in the Western Pacific. This millennia-old wisdom of achieving victory without battle remains profoundly relevant. At the September 3 parade, China further exhibited multiple large stealth “loyal wingman” UAVs, unmanned underwater vehicles, and robotic ground platforms – all representing technologies where China not only matches but leads, creating a generational gap. This marks a technological transition from catching up with the US to surpassing it in key areas. In a nuclear war, there are no winners. But in conventional warfare, it is increasingly clear that the victor will no longer be the United States.

“Subduing the enemy without fighting” is not some deeply secret mystery, it has always been the most important part of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, which is also one of the most important textbooks at America’s West Point Military Academy. What’s regrettable is that when the West reads this work, they often only see the “warfare is based on deception” part, obsessing over how to win wars, rarely noticing the wisdom it teaches about avoiding war as much as possible and “the supreme excellence is to subdue the enemy’s army without fighting.” Some Western media even now try to use the quote of “appear strong when you are weak” to circularly argue that China is just bluffing and the Chinese military is “flashy but insubstantial”, this shallow understanding of Chinese wisdom not only leads to laughable ostrich mentality but is also dangerous.

The PLA showcased in the Victory Day parade has evolved into a force capable of rivaling any opponent, boasting advanced technology, rigorous training, robust organization, and formidable mobilization capacity. Yet, by choosing this symbolic date, the anniversary of the victory over fascism, to unveil these sophisticated and precise weapons, China sends a clear message to the world: to prevent another world war, it has built not only coercive power to restrain aggression, but also constructive power to promote development. Defending national sovereignty remains the PLA’s unshakable bottom line, while “止戈为武” (“deterring war through strength”) continues to be its highest mission.

Wang Xiangsui is the Deputy Secretary General, CITIC Foundation for Reform and Development Studies Former Senior Colonel, People’s Liberation Army; Co-author, “Unrestricted Warfare”.

First published on The China Academy.

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