Rare Video Shows China’s Game-Changing Weapon for ‘D-Day’

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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian security issues, and cross-strait ties between China and Taiwan. You can get in touch with Micah by emailing m.mccartney@newsweek.com.

Micah McCartney

China News Reporter

Video has surfaced of China’s newly constructed landing barges that analysts say could be put to use during an invasion of Beijing-claimed Taiwan.

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese and Taiwanese Foreign Ministries via email for comment outside of office hours.

Why It Matters

Naval News reported in January that several barges were at a shipyard in the southeastern city of Guangzhou. Characterizing the ships are their ramps, which are longer than football fields, enabling military vehicles to bypass heavily defended beaches.

China claims Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to unify with the island democracy, through force if necessary. However, Beijing’s Chinese Communist Party government has never ruled there.

What To Know

The now-deleted footage, shared on China’s WeChat social media app, showed three vessels supported in the shallows on retractable pillars.

The barges appear to be connected in a continuous span, with the lead ship’s ramp extended past the beach.

China has already ramped up production of roll-on/roll-off ships—commercial vessels that can be repurposed for military transport. These ships are equipped with ramps that can quickly load, transport, and unload tanks and other heavy equipment in wartime.

Naval News reported that the ships could potentially link up with a landing barge’s stern, enabling the rapid transfer of tanks and other vehicles. The arrangement has been compared to the Allies’ preparations for the D-Day seaborne invasion of Normandy in 1944.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has sharply increased its military pressure campaign against Taiwan in recent years, including regular sorties into its air defense identification zone and conducting drills that simulate a blockade.

Several U.S. officials, including former CIA Director Bill Burns, have said they believe Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready for a potential move against Taiwan by 2027, acknowledging this does not guarantee an invasion would take place that year or at all.

What People Are Saying

Tom Shugart, a former U.S. Navy submariner and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, on X, formerly Twitter, in January: “I honestly cannot think of too many developments that could be more of a red flag for Taiwanese and US/allied defense planners that the PLA is making real its direction from Xi Jinping to have the capability to invade Taiwan by 2027.”

Shugart said in another post: “If they do manage to get these ashore and can defend them, that will be very bad news for Taiwan, as China’s absolutely immense merchant marine can transport vast numbers of vehicles using its ever-growing fleet of Ro/Ro [roll-on, roll-off] ferries and vehicle carriers.”

What Happens Next

Since coming to power in 2016, Taiwan’s Beijing-skeptic government has accelerated preparations for a Chinese amphibious invasion contingency through U.S. arms purchases, military upgrades, and domestically developed weapons like cruise missiles.

However, Taipei is still waiting on a backlog of billions of dollars in military equipment, much of which Congress approved for sale several years ago.

Washington maintains its long-standing “strategic ambiguity” policy, keeping Beijing guessing whether the U.S. would commit forces to the island’s defense during a conflict.

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