The world has known for awhile that things were shifting toward drone warfare, but China just showed off, Air recon/strike craft and VTOLs, Naval surface and subsurface drones, Ground light forces(robo dogs), and heavy forces(mini drone tanks).
They could effectively wage a war without losing a single soldier. Combined with their industrial capacity, and the defensive capability they showed off (Directed energy anti missile systems for example). Its now clear that China would defeat the US in a conventional war. Many of the things shown off in Chinas parade are technologies still in the prototyping phase in the US. The tech gap is closed. Or honestly in Chinas favor at this point.
They had for example drones integrated into their heavy tank forces. With launch platforms on top, and likely piloted from inside. So their tanks can now get a birds eye view of their surroundings at all times. This philosophy is likely an example of how theyll operate in general. With large armored ships, and vehicles acting as mobile control platforms for their vast drone forces. Its the modern equivalent of the air craft carrier. Drone warefare taken to its logical conclusion.
Our comrades in the PLA arent fucking around.
The most scary thing for the west right now has to be the ability for China to organize these massive operations almost flawlessly. The US showed recently that they cannot even manage a small parade, while France also had a terrible Olympics inauguration, these things are often downplayed by people as meaningless but they really showcase the skill of planning and organizing. There is a clear erosion in these skills in the West while there is a clear refinement in China, i still remember the beijing olympics in 2008 being jaw-dropping and it’s been almost 20 years by now.
Exactly like say a war breaks out. Whoever launches fighters fastest takes the skies. China was launching them within feet of each other one after another. Meanwhile the US has theirs crashing while trying to land alone lol.