BEIJING — For the first time in a decade, Beijing on Thursday will showcase its latest armored vehicles, ballistic missiles and fighter jets in a demonstration of military ambition meant to befit the nation's economic rise.
The display of hardware -- part of the government's 60th anniversary celebrations -- will no doubt stoke national pride. But it's also a chance for China to show an international audience that the world's third-largest economy is investing heavily in military technology, a strategic sector that Beijing believes will strengthen its regional security and global influence.
Expected to be on display is a new generation of missiles that could potentially strike American naval ships and pound Taiwanese soil from the Chinese mainland. It is the product of two decades of enhanced military spending aimed at overhauling a woefully inefficient and technologically challenged fighting force.
"They have been focusing on catching up in areas where the technological disparity has been the greatest, and cultivating pockets of excellence within" the People's Liberation Army, said David Yang, a political scientist at Rand Corp. "That said, the PLA is a massive, even ponderous, organization, and its professionalization and modernization will remain an arduous process for years."
With 2.3 million members, the Chinese army is the largest standing army in the world. Beijing has spent years trying to overcome the army's long-held image as a poorly equipped force consisting mostly of rural enlistees. The army lacks combat experience, having last engaged in a major conflict in 1979 with Vietnam.
Earlier this year, officials announced heavy recruitment of college graduates. More important, Beijing has increased military spending each year by double-digit percentages. China's official military budget was $70.3 billion this year, up sharply from $14.6 billion in 2000, according to Washington-based GlobalSecurity.org.
Chinese state media have trumpeted the fact that almost all the new weaponry to be unveiled at the parade was domestically produced, a major leap from the days when China was almost totally reliant upon the Soviet Union for sophisticated armaments. China's fighting capabilities were not nearly as advanced 10 years ago, the last time the country celebrated its national anniversary with a military parade.
