Chinese soldiers sit atop tanks as they drive in a parade to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Communist Party's takeover of China, at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2019. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
China has long used its 10-year anniversary Oct. 1 large scale military parades to intimidate the island democracy of Taiwan and to intimidate the United States from making good on consistent suggestions that it would help to defend Taiwan if China attacks.
This year’s Oct. 1, 2019 70th Anniversary military parade, which observes the Communist Party’s takeover of China in 1949, poured on the intimidation. According to China’s Ministry of Defense, the parade included 15,000 troops, more than 160 combat aircraft and 580 pieces of other military equipment.
Such a display takes on greater significance considering Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s increasing insistence that Taiwan accept “peaceful unification” with China, or to surrender its hard-earned democracy for an undefined status under the rubric of Beijing’s “one country, two systems.” This is the same deal that China in 1997 gave to the people of Hong Kong, who today are literally fighting and dying to defend the freedoms China is taking away.
China’s deception is that “one country, two systems” is not an “end state;” it is actually a stratagem for forcing submission to the dictatorship of the CCP that combines political, economic and military warfare. The CCP’s massive People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its nearly as large People’s Armed Police (PAP) prefer strategies of intimidation, threatening parades and military exercises instead of expensive and uncertain warfare.
Like previous parades, the 70th Anniversary military parade displayed many of the new weapons systems developed in large part over the previous decade, usually recently entered into service. New weapons intended to intimidate Taiwan and to deter U.S. intervention in the event of a Chinese attack include the following.
Type 15 Light Tank: Though already deployed with PLA Ground Force and PLA Marine units, the Type-15 light tank (seen below) made its debut appearance in the October parade. Its significance is that by virtue of its 30-ton weight, versus the estimated 58 tons for the new Type-99A main battle tank, the Type-15 is much easier to transport to Taiwan aboard existing PLA Navy amphibious assault ships and the hundreds of civilian large ferries and barges that will also support an invasion.
Screenshot of type 15-light tanks. Source: Chinese Internet
Its main armament is a 105 mm auto-loading cannon that can fire 4-5 km range gun-launched anti-tank missiles that can defeat most of Taiwan’s current tanks. It employs modern modular composite armor and could in the future be armed with active defenses to defeat anti-tank missiles. It can also be more easily transported by the PLA Air Force’s Xian Aircraft Corporation Y-20 heavy transport aircraft.
New Multiple Launch Rocket System: Called the PHL-16 by some Chinese commentators, this new multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) is most likely made by the Norinco Corporation, and may be the PLA’s first second generation short-range ballistic missile system (SRBM). In the parade, it was armed with eight new 370 mm diameter navigation satellite-guided artillery rockets that may have a range of 280 km, which can reach most of Taiwan from China’s coast on the Taiwan Strait.
Rick Fisher
Author
Rick Fisher is a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
