Beijing’s recent display of military prowess is part of a broader effort to sow instability. The U.S. must push back.
C hinese General-Secretary Xi Jinping has wanted desperately to display his growing nuclear power for all the world to see. Last week, the Chinese military delivered. It is vital that America’s leaders understand just what this means for the security of the West.
Last Wednesday, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) paraded a host of weapons systems through the streets of Beijing. The assembled audience included not only China’s applauding masses, but also a who’s who of America’s enemies, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian. These tyrants hobnobbed as a dizzying array of Chinese military hardware passed by. Putin, in particular, could be seen mixing it up with Xi as the Chinese leader gestured toward a seemingly endless stream of troops, tanks, and aircraft. Afterwards, Xi even led Putin through the parade grounds as the two dictators discussed harvesting organs to extend their reigns and achieve immortality.
Tanks, aircraft and organs aside, however, the most concerning aspect of this military display was the next-generation nuclear missiles that rolled past Xi’s autocratic fraternity. The PLA debuted the land-based DF-61 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a missile so large that it is carried on and launched from a 16-wheeled truck. Joining the DF-61 for its maiden stroll through Beijing was the DF-5C, another gigantic land-based missile that can reportedly deliver either several kiloton warheads or one multi-megaton warhead anywhere on earth. The DF-31BJ, designed for China’s hundreds of newly built land-based silos, also appeared for the first time. The PLA even showcased a first-of-its-kind air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM), as well as a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) that can strike the continental United States from home waters.
These missiles in themselves will come as no great shock to informed observers, however. Chinese authorities have either hinted at or written openly about them for several years now. The PLA Air Force, for instance, flight-tested an ALBM in 2024. And American analysts have been anticipating China’s next-generation missiles, in one form or another, for some time.
The true significance of Xi’s parade thus lies less in shock value than in what it says about China’s nuclear aspirations — and about America’s faltering modernization program. China is rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons and diversifying the means of delivering them, even as America struggles merely to replace its aging missiles and bombers. The U.S. Department of Defense estimates that by 2035, China will have matched or blown past the roughly 1,550 warheads America deploys. Moreover, China has already matched or surpassed America’s 400 ICBMs and enjoys a sizable advantage in medium-range missiles that can hold hostage America’s allies in the western Pacific.
These adverse trends — displayed so prominently in Xi’s parade — spring from the clashing geopolitical aspirations of China and America. For years, Washington attempted in vain to stave off an aggressive Chinese nuclear buildup by engaging Beijing in arms-control negotiations. Washington even enthusiastically invited Beijing into its liberalized global order, hoping that China would become a “responsible stakeholder” and disavow territorial claims against Taiwan and its neighbors. Stability has long been Washington’s guiding principle with Beijing. U.S. officials deliberately constrained their nuclear capability to foster reciprocity.
Chinese officials, by contrast, have shown little interest in stabilizing relations with the U.S.-led liberal order. Beijing has consistently refused America’s outstretched hand, aiming instead to supplant Washington and remold the world into its own illiberal image. Look no further than China’s “wolf warrior diplomacy” and its market-distorting trade and industrial policies for evidence of its perfidy. Calculated instability is China’s guiding principle. And in the nuclear domain, China believes building up will destabilize America’s alliances just enough to help usher in a Sino-centric world without igniting a cataclysmic war.
Consider those huge ICBMs featured in Xi’s parade. Beijing has proceeded with its nuclear buildup in the most destabilizing way imaginable. Rather than concentrating on highly survivable road-mobile missiles or submarines that can ride out a surprise attack and then strike second, it has built gigantic silo-based ICBMs that are extraordinarily vulnerable and thus most useful in destroying America’s missile silos in a first strike. The DF-31BJ and heavy-payload DF-5C, for example, can reportedly carry three and ten warheads, respectively, improving China’s ability to destroy America’s silo-based ICBMs.
If China somehow cripples its silo launchers in a first strike, Washington would still be able to retaliate with its highly survivable strategic submarines, but only at the risk of provoking a follow-on Chinese attack on American cities. A surprise decapitation strike on America’s political leadership, moreover, would call into question whether the U.S. could even reconstitute its decision-making apparatus to retaliate with a submarine-generated counterattack.
This dire scenario might seem improbable — even impossible. It may well be. But since deterrence is a state of mind, more a function of nonrational perceptions than reality, it matters more what Chinese decision-makers think than what U.S. analysts think. What’s more, since China has tailored its buildup to cast doubt on America’s nuclear security guarantee to allies, the perceptions of, say, Japanese decision-makers are arguably more consequential.
Suppose Tokyo believes China stands a chance of decapitating America’s leadership and disarming its ICBMs. In that case, Japan might realign away from Washington in peacetime or accommodate Beijing in a simmering crisis. And if Taiwan sees Japan fold out of fear of American abandonment, then it might come to terms with China rather than face its wrath alone. In this scenario, China will have destabilized America’s maritime barrier and broken free of its continental encirclement. And it would be mistaken to assume this scenario is a fantasy, as no less than Japan’s prime minister has questioned the future of the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
How, then, should U.S. officials understand Xi’s parade? First, they should recognize that Beijing isn’t after stability and doesn’t want a reciprocal nuclear relationship. Rather, China’s silo-based ICBMs and medium-range missiles are intended to generate just enough instability, to open just enough daylight between Washington and its Asian allies, that Beijing can pull the western Pacific into a Sino-centric orbit without resorting to full-blown warfare.
Second, given China’s politics of calculated instability, U.S. officials should recognize that continued American restraint will only embolden Beijing and unnerve its closest Asian allies. Critics of bipartisan proposals to grow America’s strategic and theater nuclear forces warn that such steps would provoke China and ignite a destabilizing arms race. But these critics have it backwards. The only thing more provocative and destabilizing for relations with a revisionist power like China would be to invite further aggression by foregoing defensive countermeasures. Washington should thus move confidently to upload more warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs and accelerate the development of a new medium-range sea-launched cruise missile.
Stabilizing relations with an aggressive power like China requires pushing back. It is well past time for U.S. officials to do so. If Washington continues to demonstrate a lack of urgency, it will not only embolden China. It will also sow doubt among America’s allies about its credibility. Such a future is ultimately what Beijing wants. Washington should start working for something better.