Image copyright AFP Image caption Papers say China's military needs a strong missile defence system

Media analyse China's defence capabilities after the country's successful test of an anti-missile system.

The Ministry of Defence on Thursday announced that the military successfully conducted tests on its missile-interception system from land and "achieved the pre-set goal".

Describing the test as a "success", a commentary in the Beijing News notes "China has already mastered anti-missile technology and is in a world-leading position".

It observes that the US and India are also developing anti-missile systems, while Japan is "actively participating in the research of missile defence systems".

The China Daily quotes experts as saying that China has "made a major breakthrough" in the technology.

However, Teng Jianqun, a senior research fellow from the China Institute of International Studies, warns that China's anti-missile system is still far from being perfect.

"It does not form a seamless shield protecting the whole country from a swarm of incoming warheads," he notes.

An unnamed expert echoes similar sentiments, saying China still lags behind some countries, including the US.

"There is still a huge gap between China and the major military powers, and unlike the US, we are unable to deploy the anti-missile weapons overseas," he tells the People's Daily website.

Yin Zhuo, a military expert, adds that "China does not have an immediate plan to deploy the system".

"Our aim is to show the US that we possess such technology… China is against the militarisation of space, and does not really want to carry out actual deployment, but if the US is deploying a massive anti-missile system, China will need to be equipped too," he tells the Peninsula Morning Post.

Japan anniversary

Elsewhere, media commemorate the 120th anniversary of the break out of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), amid tense Beijing-Tokyo bilateral relations.

The Japanese army defeated the forces of of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), marking China's first defeat in a war against Japan.

An article in the Beijing News points out that the loss was caused by a lack of understanding of the enemy.

It recalls that China had "all along despised Japan as a small and barbaric country", so the "impact on the Chinese psyche was huge" when it lost the war.

"To win the war, you have to fully understand your enemy… Yelling patriotic slogans is useless if you cannot calmly and rationally assess your enemy and provide constructive suggestions to the country. This is the lesson that we should learn from this Sino-Japanese war," it says.

The Global Times warns against comparing the bilateral relationship of more than a century ago with the present time.

"China 120 years ago lacked national strength, social unity and effective government. It proved unable to reform itself in the face of serious setbacks," it notes, adding that China should "continue to push reforms and curb its social ills".

"We should continue to crack down on corruption, and protect the democracy advocated by generations of revolutionaries. All this, however, should not come at the cost of social chaos," it says.

BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.