The official PLA Daily December 9th 2015 edition announced that Chinese soldiers are now in possession of laser guns. This was not a counter to the success of Star Wars: Force Awakens, but rather the revelation of new responses to the spread of new technology like unmanned systems.

International conventions like the 1998 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons ban the use of lasers and blinding weapons used against people; however the optical and thermal sensors on vehicles, aircraft and robots are still fair game. For example, the PY132A laser is one of the systems displayed at a domestic Chinese police expo, presumably for usage against rogue and terrorist drones. Chinese defense contractors are also marketing the Low Altitude Guard laser turret for shooting down small UAVs as a police and law enforcement tool (though it also has a more powerful military counterpart).