China Deployed Laser Weapons to Watch Over Its Massive Military Parade
Five different high-energy laser systems were stationed across Beijing to counter potential drone threats.
When China publicly rolled out its latest high-energy laser weapon to the world during its massive military parade in Beijing last week, another family of directed energy systems was quietly working behind the scenes to scan the skies for hostile drones.
The country’s state-run Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) revealed in a Weibo post on September 10 that it had deployed five different laser weapon systems near Tiananmen’s Qianmen Gate, the Wangfujing district, and the Beijing Capital International Airport for “drone control” during the parade, which marked the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat at the end of World War II.
The laser weapons, which included AVIC’s Light Arrow-11E and Light Arrow-21A systems, “accurately identified targets multiple times, successfully completing the parade support mission,” the company stated. (Defence Blog was first to report on the deployment.)
China has pursued military laser weapons since the 1960s and has developed an impressing arsenal of such systems in recent decades. AVIC in particular previously showcased its Light Arrow and Sky Shield families of laser weapons at the Zhuhai Airshow in November 2024, including a ground-based sentry drone reportedly developed with “independent and autonomous combat capabilities,” as the state-run news agency Xinhua described it in a now-deleted dispatch from the defense expo.
The Beijing parade’s official showcase centered on the imposing LY-1 naval laser weapon, billed as China’s “most powerful” to date and flanked by the People’s Liberation Army’s existing vehicle-mounted OW5-A laser systems during the event. But the quiet deployment of Light Arrow systems for security underscores growing confidence in directed energy weapons not just as military showpieces, but as practical air defense tools in sensitive domestic settings
Low-cost weaponized drones have become a growing security risk for governments around the world beyond the battlefield. In 2018, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro narrowly survived an assassination attempt involving explosive-laden drones during a military event in Caracas. As recently as this past July, Russia cancelled its Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg for the first time ever for “security reasons” following a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks across the western port of the country.
As parades and national celebrations become prime targets for drone attacks, lasers offer an appealing defense option: speed-of-light intercepts, near-infinite magazines, and the ability to precisely down aerial threats without spraying a densely-populated area with bullets or explosive interceptors.
Indeed, AVIC’s parade support mission isn’t the first time laser weapons have been tasked with drone defense outside of an active combat zone. In July 2024, the French government deployed a pair of CILAS-made laser systems to secure the airspace over the country’s Île-de-France region during the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics. Later that year, observers spotted what appeared to be a Chinese-made Shen Nung laser turret in Iran’s capital of Tehran ahead of a rare public sermon from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
For decades, lasers were paraded as visions of the future — and in Beijing last week, they were actually on parade duty. Whether this marks the start of lasers as routine urban security architecture or was simply another staged demonstration, China’s willingness to normalize directed energy use in its capital represents a milestone in the global laser wars — and this shift could reshape how nations think about securing their skies.
