The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) upcoming military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII will serve as both a symbolic display and an operational exercise, highlighting the PLA’s advancements in new combat domains—such as unmanned systems, directed energy, and electronic warfare—while also revealing improvements in command structure and organizational capacity. The parade aims to underscore loyalty to Xi Jinping as central to combat readiness, even as recent purges expose deep institutional instability and a persistent “trust deficit” between the CCP and the PLA. These tensions underscore the regime’s challenge in balancing political control with genuine military professionalization
Read Full Article »