China's powerful military is considered to be a master at concealing its in...
ZHUHAI, China - China’s powerful military is considered to be a master at concealing its intentions. But there is no secret about how it plans to destroy American aircraft carriers if rivalry becomes war.
The fate of the ship is an unmistakable message to an America that has long dominated the globe from its mighty aircraft carriers and sprawling network of hundreds of bases. China’s military is now making giant strides toward replacing the United States as the supreme power in Asia.
This includes so-called carrier killer missiles like the DF-21D, which can target aircraft carriers and other warships underway at sea at a range of up to 1,500 kilometers, according to Chinese and Western military analysts. If effective, these missiles would give China a destructive capability no other military can boast. China’s advantage in this class of missiles is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, despite U.S.
Fanell was sidelined by the Pentagon ahead of his 2015 retirement, after warning about the Chinese build-up at a time when President Barack Obama was seeking cooperation with Beijing. Today, Pentagon policy hews more closely to his views that China intends to displace the United States as Asia’s dominant power.
Xi Jinping, who has seized direct control of the world’s largest fighting force, has played a pivotal role in the ascendancy of Chinese missile forces. This series, “The China Challenge,” examines how Xi is transforming the PLA and challenging U.S. supremacy in Asia. He has delivered a powerful boost to the prestige and influence of the elite unit responsible for China’s nuclear and conventional missiles, the PLA Rocket Force.
But it’s not mere theater. This concerted advertising of China’s ability to deliver long-range conventional strikes without risking aircraft, ships or casualties is a key element of PLA strategy under Xi. Foreign military analysts say it sends a signal that China has the capacity to resist interference as it expands control over vast swathes of the South China Sea, intensifies naval and air sorties around Taiwan, and extends operations into territory it disputes with Japan in the East China Sea.
Still, current and former U.S. military officials say they are convinced from close monitoring of China’s numerous test firings that PLA missiles are a genuine threat.What makes Chinese missiles so dangerous for the United States and its Asian allies is that the PLA is winning the “range war,” according to Robert Haddick, a former U.S. Marine Corps officer and now a visiting senior fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies based in Arlington, Virginia.
However, the Trump administration appears to be clearing the way for the United States to compete. On Feb. 1, Trump announced Washington would withdraw from the treaty, accusing Moscow of breaching the agreement. He said in a statement that the U.S. would quit in six months unless Russia returned to compliance. Trump also said that China had more than 1,000 missiles of the range covered by the INF Treaty. He added that the U.S.
For the U.S. military, one fear is that swarms of cheap, expendable Chinese missiles have the potential to neutralize the most expensive warships ever built. China does not publish the cost of its missiles. A modern version of the subsonic, Cold-war vintage Harpoon, the mainstay anti-ship missile of the United States and its allies, costs $1.2 million, according to the U.S. Navy.
Apart from weapons covered by the INF Treaty where China has a monopoly, the PLA has other missiles in its arsenal that outperform their U.S. counterparts. These include two supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, the YJ-12, with a range of 400 km, and the YJ-18, which can hit targets up to 540 km away.
Extra performance is being squeezed out of old U.S. air and sea-launched missiles. Boeing is upgrading the Harpoon anti-ship missile. An anti-ship variant of Raytheon’s venerable Tomahawk land attack cruise missile - with a range in excess of 1,600 km - is undergoing tests.
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