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On June 14, 2025, the U.S. Army marked its 250th anniversary with a public parade in Washington. While billed as the Army’s celebration, the parade was unconventional in American terms. It featured corporate sponsors and was closely identified with President Donald Trump, falling on his birthday. Critics — ranging from veterans’ groups to some members of Congress — viewed it as politically charged, drawing uncomfortably close to spectacles more akin to what we would see in authoritarian countries.
Supporters, however, praised it as a tribute to the armed forces and a patriotic show of strength. Before the parade, Kori Schake — no stranger to criticizing the president — argued that while critics raised concerns about politicization, the parade might have also served to bridge the civilian-military divide and reinforce public appreciation for a shrinking volunteer force. And on the day itself, she was pleased to see “our Army engaging so comfortably with the public on the [National] Mall: showing off training events, letting kids sit in helicopters. This isn’t an army of occupation, it’s our soldiers trying to connect to broader society.”
But it is worth looking beyond our shores to see how America’s main rival — China — interpreted this event. The stark differences between America’s informal, commercialized parade and China’s tightly disciplined and painstakingly orchestrated military spectacles illustrate fundamentally divergent visions of military power. These differences highlight cultural divides that can influence strategic assessments of capability and cohesion. And, indeed, for Chinese analysts, the event revealed as much about American cultural identity as it did about military power.
The South China Morning Post quickly published a feature titled “Nothing new: US Army parade holds no surprises for Chinese military minds,” which collected observations from Chinese analysts and military enthusiasts who watched the event online. Their comments focused less on the technology and more on the ritual’s form: the loose formations of American troops, the surprising presence of corporate sponsorships, the general absence of political messaging, and the visible differences in soldier height and posture. One anonymous commentator noted, “This would never happen in a [People’s Liberation Army] parade.” Another remarked that the lack of uniformity betrayed a certain laxity in discipline. While these responses might strike Western readers as superficial, they reflect divergent foundational assumptions about how military power is best communicated.
Although The South China Morning Post is based in Hong Kong and operates with more editorial latitude than most Chinese media outlets (although less so since Beijing brought Hong Kong to heel), its reporting often reflects a calibrated balance between international and the mainland’s political climate. To deepen the cultural analysis, this piece also draws from mainland Chinese sources like Tencent News and the Kunlun Policy Forum, which offered sharper, more ideologically aligned interpretations. Engaging with these sources in their original Chinese allows a closer view of how official or popular voices within the People’s Republic of China interpret American military symbolism — not merely as observers of a foreign ritual, but as strategic audiences invested in narrative competition.
Military parades are performances, but what they perform — and for whom — differs drastically. In China, the audience is primarily domestic. The message is one of ideological unity, political order, and the seamless integration of the People’s Liberation Army with the Chinese Communist Party. In the United States, the audience is both civil and international. The message is one of public engagement, institutional continuity, and democratic legitimacy. Where China fuses soldier and state, America maintains the distinction. Where China signals unity through control, America signals legitimacy through participation.
In Chinese political culture, military parades are acts of statecraft — coordinated spectacles that affirm the Chinese Communist Party’s authority and the military’s unity. When China marked the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic in 2019, the event featured meticulously arranged troop formations, identical uniforms and posture, and aircraft flying in exact synchronized patterns. Every element conveyed harmony, hierarchy, and national discipline. In contrast, the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary parade featured cheering civilians, robot dogs marching beside soldiers, and sponsor banners from companies like Lockheed Martin, USAA, and T-Mobile. To Chinese observers, this mixture of festivity, commercial presence, and relaxed protocol creates symbolic ambiguity. In the American context, however, it reflects transparency, pluralism, and civil-military coexistence.
Chinese state-affiliated commentators dismissed the parade as a “an armed float parade — mocking its lack of discipline, low energy, and theatrical excess. One quipped that “even Chinese university students march better,” reinforcing a broader narrative that contrasted People’s Liberation Army precision with perceived American disorder. Another viewer remarked, “It is really more like a birthday celebration … I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw sponsors being displayed on the big screen. This is impossible in Chinese parades.” What Americans might perceive as a festive, pluralistic public celebration — robot dogs flanked by brand logos, tactical vehicles rolling past cheering civilians — struck many Chinese observers as incoherent, unserious, and symptomatic of decline.
This contrast extends beyond ceremony and into systems of acquisition and force development. While the United States is culturally comfortable with informal displays and decentralized expression, it adheres to highly structured, centralized approaches to procurement and modernization. It favors multi-decade development programs, technologically ambitious platforms, and institutional gatekeeping — embodied by systems like the F-35 or Next Generation Air Dominance fighter. These programs promise revolutionary capabilities but often arrive over budget, behind schedule, and vulnerable to rapid obsolescence. Symbolic looseness coexists with organizational rigidity — revealing the paradoxes embedded in the American military system.
This cultural emphasis on symbolic coherence is not incidental. As Andrew Scobell argues, China’s strategic posture is shaped by a deeply internalized defensive narrative — one that paradoxically produces aggressive signaling. Because Chinese military tradition sees national survival as dependent on political unity and ideological strength, foreign displays of looseness, pluralism, or commercialism can be interpreted not merely as strange, but as strategically unserious. From this lens, the U.S. Army’s relaxed pageantry is not just foreign — it’s potentially incoherent, even dangerous.
This symbolic divergence is not without strategic risk. In an age of global media and cross-cultural signaling, misreading the other’s cues can lead to dangerous miscalculations. A Chinese observer might interpret American military looseness as indicative of disorganization or decline, underestimating the combat-tested cohesion of decentralized U.S. forces. Conversely, American analysts may see the People’s Liberation Army ritual perfection and assume battlefield competence that has yet to be operationally proven. Strategic mirror-imaging, if left unchecked, can distort assessments of resolve, readiness, or intent — especially in tense environments like the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea.
To be fair, the South China Morning Post article includes a more tempered voice. Meanwhile, coverage in mainland Chinese media offered increasingly stark perspectives on the parade and what it symbolized.
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One article from Tencent News described the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary parade as chaotic, overly commercialized, and lacking in martial seriousness. According to the article, what was meant to be a celebration of strength felt more like a military-themed amusement park, complete with loosely organized formations and conspicuous brand sponsorships. The thick bulletproof glass shielding President Trump during the event, it noted, served as an unintentional symbol of America’s internal divisions and security anxieties.
A second Tencent News article offered a sarcastic play-by-play of the parade’s visuals and structure. It emphasized how period reenactments were interrupted by brand advertisements — for example, a Phorm energy drink spot following the World War I segment — and compared the overall atmosphere to a “rural variety show.” Robot dogs and drones, which were meant to symbolize future force, were mocked for being manually controlled and appearing underwhelming. The tone was humorous but laced with implicit critique about spectacle overshadowing substance.
A more ideologically charged analysis appeared in the Kunlun Policy Forum, framing the entire parade as a symbol of American decline. Referencing the simultaneous nationwide protests and political violence — including the assassination of two Minnesota legislators — the piece labeled the parade as a “twilight of empire” moment. What was intended to honor the Army’s legacy instead appeared to many Chinese observers as a nostalgic yet incoherent pageant, unable to mask deeper fractures within U.S. political society. One Chinese observer cautioned against conflating ceremonial presentation with combat readiness, noting that the U.S. military has been tested in nearly every major conflict of the last century and remains unmatched in joint operational experience. Still, the article as a whole reflects a broader strategic communication goal: to position the People’s Liberation Army as disciplined and modern, and to cast doubt on the U.S. military’s seriousness and cohesion.
Further illustrating the strategic intent behind such Chinese displays, journalist Evan Osnos observed that China’s 2015 military parade — broadcast live across the country — was more than ceremonial pageantry. At a time of Chinese domestic economic uncertainty, the parade was meticulously orchestrated to reinforce national confidence while showcasing advanced capabilities such as the DF-21D “carrier killer” missile. Osnos noted that the event served dual purposes: to reassure domestic audiences of the regime’s strength and to project outward a clear message of technological sophistication and military readiness — signaling that China’s modernization had reached a new stage of operational credibility.
This performative power is not accidental — it aligns closely with the People’s Liberation Army’s broader strategic messaging doctrine. As RAND analyst Timothy R. Heath has observed, People’s Liberation Army parades are not merely national celebrations but deliberate tools of deterrence and political legitimacy. They are designed to project an image of a disciplined, technologically advanced force that is both loyal to the Chinese Communist Party and ready for regional contingencies. These displays are as much about reinforcing regime credibility at home as they are about signaling readiness and resolve abroad. In this light, the aesthetics of the parade become inseparable from China’s theory of deterrence itself — visual choreography as strategic posture.
These aesthetic strategies also shape international perceptions. For allies and observers in Southeast Asia, Africa, or Latin America, the differences between American and Chinese parades are not merely decorative. They signal what kind of power each nation wishes to be. China’s parades project precision, confidence, and political coherence. America’s parade, with its sponsorships and spontaneity, projects transparency, messiness, and pluralism. Both approaches carry symbolic weight. Some audiences may find reassurance in China’s order. Others may find authenticity in America’s open contradictions.
The divergence also speaks volumes about civil-military relations. In China, the People’s Liberation Army is a tool of the Communist Party. It serves a political, not merely national, function. In the United States, the military is a public institution, explicitly subordinated to civilian leadership and seen as a servant of the people. That distinction appears vividly in the parade: In China, the parade affirms the Party’s grip; in America, it affirms the people’s participation. What looks like chaos in one context may be a signal of democratic health in the other.
What this moment ultimately reveals is that military capability is not just material. It is also symbolic. It resides not only in hardware, but in narratives. China’s strength lies in its capacity for industrial mobilization, ideological clarity, and agile modernization. America’s lies in its innovation ecosystem, combat-tested leadership culture, and flexible command structures. Each has vulnerabilities. China may overinvest in aesthetic unity and underinvest in operational improvisation. The United States may underinvest in symbolic projection and overinvest in exquisite systems that lack scalability. But the long game is not about which nation puts on a better parade. It is about whose military culture adapts faster, learns more deeply, and balances chaos with control.
In China, the military and the state are fused — the People’s Liberation Army is loyal to the Communist Party, and its parades serve as ideological performances. In the United States, the military is subordinated to elected civilian leadership — its public image shaped by pluralism and spectacle. Yet even here, boundaries blur. The 2025 parade, entwined with presidential politics and corporate branding, unsettled traditional expectations.
To a Western strategist, China’s precision may seem oppressive. To a Chinese observer, American improvisation may look disordered. Both judgments reflect cultural bias. But in an age of accelerating complexity, the edge belongs not to the rigid or the chaotic — but to those who can navigate both. The future belongs to military cultures that know when to march in step — and when to dance in the storm.
J. William “BILL” DeMarco, D.Prof is the director of innovation and analysis at Air University where he is also an assistant professor. He is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel with five command tours spanning mobility, refueling, and joint operations. A former Hoover fellow at Stanford University and research fellow at Cambridge University, he focuses on operational design, intrapreneurship, and leadership innovation in complex military systems. The views in this article are those of the author and not those of Air University, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.
Image: U.S. Army
