China's Military Demonstrates Investments in Digital Firepower

China’s military ambitions were on display at Beijing’s 80th anniversary parade last week marking the end of World War II. Behind the immaculately timed military columns, the digital evolution of its weaponry was evident, not only in the shiny hardware on show but also in the cyber objectives it signaled.

The future of China’s arsenal, whether it be its long-range rockets, robot wolves, hacking tools or spyware, lies with digitalized operating systems, unmanned weaponry and an expanding suite of cyberwarfare capabilities.

This parade was not a dress rehearsal, but a physical manifestation of China’s digital capabilities. These are not US rudimentary copies, but evidence of an advanced digital-industrial complex. With its swirling budgets, the weaponry on display is real, and as a window into the future of war should be taken seriously.

Among the weapons paraded were three hypersonic missiles, capable of traveling at least five times the speed of sound, and LY-1’s which operate as high-energy laser weapon systems capable of disabling a swarm of drones mid air.

The parade also featured remote-control unmanned armored buggies, air-dropped from transport planes behind enemy lines to clear mines, pick up wounded soldiers or operate in formation with robotic wolves. In the maritime domain, the PLA unveiled drone submarines — extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicles (XLUUVs) — weaponized with torpedos and available in multiple variants ready for deployment.

Much of this cutting edge weaponry is driven by significant computational power, often enabled by AI and autonomous functionality, and increasingly linked together in battle management and communications systems that coordinate forces and synchronize weaponry in conflict.

But the most formidable capabilities are not necessarily those that goose-step or ride atop massive military trucks.

Tucked in the middle of the parade were three formations dedicated to information warfare equipment — cyberspace warfare, electronic countermeasures, and information support. They showcased equipment for command, control and reconnaissance as well as sensing and network-electronic warfare tools. Electronic countermeasure systems on display were described by the Alibaba-owned South China Morning Post as “capable of disconnecting enemy networks, breaking digital chains and providing aerial and space defense and countermeasures.”

China’s cyber ambitions are also evidenced by an unprecedented Joint Cybersecurity Advisory into the Salt Typhoon's deep attacks issued by 13 Western allies in the week leading up to Beijing’s parade. The allies accused China’s intelligence agencies and their contractor proxies of a cyberespionage campaign into the telecommunications, government, transportation, lodging, and military infrastructure networks of 80 countries.

Salt Typhoon’s advanced persistent threats exploit vulnerabilities in routers and firewalls to gain access and then embed malware and tools for persistence and data exfiltration.

These experienced hackers have been working on an array of Salt Typhoon exploits for many years: creating tunnels over protocols, altering device configurations, targeting authentication protocols and extracting credentials from captured network traffic.

The Salt Typhoon hackers have also been modifying server configurations to point to IP addresses it controls, creating privileged user accounts, scanning for ports, using monitoring tools, updating routing tables, hiding its tracks by deleting logs and disabling logging, and abusing peering connections for data exfiltration. While the impact is global, the New York Times claims that these ‘unrestrained’ Chinese hackers may have stolen data from almost every American.

The release of the Salt Typhoon report concurrent with the parade, carries significant policy and technological implications for the U.S. and NATO. Nuclear deterrence and conventional forces remain central pillars of any potential conflict, but this week signals a point of no return - cyber capabilities and digitally enabled military hardware are now defining hallmarks of contemporary warfare.

State broadcaster CCTV was not shy about this reality, touting the role that new tech plays in the PLA’s strategy and preparation for future wars:

The parade featured unmanned intelligent systems, underwater combat units, cyber and electronic forces and hypersonic weapons, highlighting the growing capacity of the People’s Liberation Army to harness emerging technologies, adapt to the evolving character of warfare, and prevail in future conflicts.

China’s dual strategy of informatization — bringing data and information systems to military operations — and intelligentization — incorporating emerging tech like AR and autonomous systems — is becoming a reality.

With 20 foreign heads of state at the parade, each with their military budgets and defense trade facilities in place, this new generation of weaponry is poised for transfer and sharing among allied armies. Chinese firms have already succeeded in securing limited export sales of systems including to Saudi Arabia and Iran, and reportedly to Russia.

In response, the West will continue to scale up investments in advanced offensive and defensive cyber tools, ranging from precision strikes and network disruption to intelligence gathering. It will invest in electronic warfare capabilities, including jamming, electronic attack aircraft, satellite protection and spectrum dominance. These efforts will accelerate the push toward joint multi-domain operations, integrating cyber, digital, and conventional war fighting across all domains.

Military parades have long served as showcases for advances in defense technology, but Beijing’s display was unlike any before it. Beneath the gleaming hardware lay a demonstration of digital firepower, underscoring the shift toward high-tech weaponry, cyber capabilities and the emerging digital battlefield that it is positioning itself to dominate.