A Chinese Version of Hellscape: What the PLA Parade Might Preview

Tomorrow's big parade in Beijing will preview new Chinese weapon systems. But the military 'bling' may also provide insights into new PLA operating concepts for drones and missiles.

Drones unveiled on the last big PLA parade in 2019. Source: Meta-defence.fr

The PLA is researching and developing autonomous drone swarm technology to solve one of the PRC’s most difficult challenges—a potential military invasion of Taiwan—and developing the capability to employ drone swarms in either an amphibious assault or blockade scenario. An examination of PRC writings suggests that the PRC is learning from both sides in the Russia-Ukraine war on the use of drones and drone countermeasures and applying these lessons to a PLA-Taiwan military scenario. Timothy Ditter, CNA report, 11 July 2025.

In this article, I want to explore the concept of a Pacific drone wall built by China, and how tomorrow’s PLA parade might preview some of its new components.

Of course, China is not the only nation capable of assembling a 21^st century military barrier comprised of air, sea and land drones. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has been discussing and simulating the creation of a drone barrier in the Taiwan Strait called Hellscape. As the Commander of Indo-PACOM, Admiral Paparo has described:

I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.

Taiwan is also building its drone forces, although the operating concepts for these are less clear than the American Hellscape.

In the past 24 hours, the media has increasingly been saturated with images of Putin, Modi and Xi meeting in China. While these Big Three leaders are in China for the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, most will stay on to attend the large military parade that will take place in Beijing on 3 September.

The 3 September parade is ostensibly to commemorate the 80^th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. And according to the official media release about the parade, its objective was described as follows:

China's massive V-Day military parade, scheduled for Sept. 3 in Tian'anmen Square, is meant to signal that the country upholds peace and will firmly defend international fairness and justice, a military official said Wednesday.

If you believe that, I have some lovely beachfront property on Heard Island to sell you!

The reality is that the parade has three more important goals. The first is to reshape narratives about the role of Russia and China in fighting who they deem fascists and global bullies in the 1940s and in the modern world. The second is to act as a quasi-arms bazaar, showing off China’s latest weaponry to potential buyers, particularly those who no longer want Russian equipment or who want cut-price knockoffs of the latest generation American kit.

Finally, and most importantly, the parade aims to project China’s strength, and its inevitable and unstoppable rise, through a demonstration of large-scale and high technology military power.

Chinese Hellscape Enablers: Drones and Missiles at the Big Parade

There has been much speculation about the new weaponry that might be unveiled during the 3 September parade. Two key systems that are likely to receive a lot of attention are missiles and drones. In the lead up to the parade, a Chinese spokesman noted that:

Certain “unmanned and counter-unmanned systems will be publicly displayed for the first time, highlighting the PLA’s strong capabilities to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, as well as to maintain world peace”.