China parade gives clues to military capability

Fighters, bombers and helicopters flew over central Beijing during the parade to the delight of citizens and also the national leaders on the podium.

"China's aerospace industry, especially the fighters and bombers, has progressed slowly but still continues to be a bit of a weak point for China," Durnin said.

"While parts of (the newest fighters) may have been developed in China they are still very dependent on Russian technology."

Washington may instead see a threat in the Dongfeng 31 intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, which can be trucked around and is harder to target than silo-based missiles.

"It's definitely a demonstration of strength for the Americans and Taiwanese," Minnick said of the parade.

But there were also clues in what wasn't shown.

Some strategists had expected that China might display a submarine-launched, nuclear-capable ballistic missile, or a new, highest-range land-based ICBM known as the Dongfeng 41.

"So I think that probably says we know these programmes are in development, we know they are close to fruition, they just probably weren't quite to the stage that China was comfortable or motivated to show them in the parade," Durnin said.

(Additional reporting by Ralph Jennings in Taipei and Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo)