What Does China Want To Signal By Test-Firing 10 Nuclear Missiles In One Day?

Before trumpeting the capability to destroy US bases in Asia-Pacific, did Xinhua or those behind the dispatch bother to analyse if that became the level of escalation, what part of China, especially the developed zones, would remain to see the next daylight. Surely the Chinese population is not that naïve whatever the propaganda by the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).

Xinhua reported on 1 December that the Chinese military's conduct of the above mentioned flight test of the salvo of 10 missiles in November, was apparent show of force. The DF-21, originally developed as a strategic weapon, can carry conventional or nuclear warhead of 300kt, and has an operational range of 1,500-1,770 kms, depending on its configuration. If China fires such a salvo at US target (s) in actual conflict, then the country would automatically press the button for its own destruction also. It would not matter whether the salvo was carrying conventional or nuclear warheads because the US would not waste any time finding that out. Sure China’s strategic missile force has perhaps amassed some 500-550 missile launchers and over 2,000 missiles but does it really matter if Beijing doubles these numbers, in addition to its stockpile of chemical and biological weapons? Remember the Russian capability of destroying the earth 65 times?

But China is a class apart in such matters; be it blatant nuclear proliferations, violating the rules of NSG and yet playing global policeman, or stockpiling chemical and biological and chemical weapons despite being signatory to various conventions or treaties. Obdurate denial remains the hallmark of China, with reverse rhetoric fired through the Chinese media.

On 23 November 2015, China had conducted the sixth flight test of its new high-speed nuclear attack vehicle (DF-ZF) capable of global strikes and designed to defeat US missile defences. The DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle was launched atop a ballistic missile fired from the Wuzhai missile test centre in central China’s Shanxi Province. The DF-ZF is believed to reach speeds of between Mach 5 and Mach 10 per hour. Current US missile defences are designed to counter non-maneuvering warheads with more easily-tracked ballistic trajectories.

China also could use the DF-ZF for conventional-armed rapid global strike capability; equivalent to America’s Prompt Global Strike. The 2015 annual report of America’s congressional US-China Economic and Security Review Commission released last November stated that China’s hypersonic weapons are in the developmental stages and are “progressing rapidly”. The glide vehicle could be deployed by 2020, and a separate high-technology ramjet-propelled cruise missile could be deployed by 2025.

The DF-41 can carry up to 10 150-300 kiloton yield thermonuclear warheads per missile capable of targeting entire US. It is solid fueled, road mobile and has an estimated range of between 12,000 and 15,000 kms. Chinese missiles aboard trains will be particularly difficult to track since the combination of high-speed mobility, launch cars disguised as civilian passenger trains, tunnel protection and secure reloading of missiles, coupled with multiple warheads, makes the system extremely hard to regulate or verify the number of systems.

China has already built 2,000 kms of heavy gauge rail for this system and is likely to have more than 273,500 kms of such train tracks by 2050. The missile will likely be deployed sometime between 2018 and 2020 and is likely to be armed with China’s deadliest DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). China has the world’s longest high-speed rail network, which is being expanded to other Eurasian countries.

With all the military build up behind the euphuism that China will be attacked (by whom and where?), the CPC is still stuck with its archaic methods of perception building; the habit of a hen strutting around its coop has not gone away. It was the norm that whenever the heads of state of another country visited China, there would be a missile or strategic weapon tested. In the case of India even a deep intrusion when Keqiang visited India. Interestingly, the November 2016 simultaneous launch of 10 x DF-21 missiles in a single salvo was meant to signal US President-elect Donald Trump; or was it to ‘scare’ Gen James Mattis?

Sure China is closely watching Japan likely upgrade its ballistic missile defences, establishing either Lockheed Martin Corp’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system or Aegis Ashore, a land-based version of the ballistic missile defense system used by vessels in the East Sea or Sea of Japan – a planned expenditure of some $1 billion. China is also concerned about the deployment of THHAD in South Korea.

China is euphoric about Donald Trump’s election-campaign announcement he would reverse President Barack Obama’s rebalancing Asia policy; hoping US will pull back from Asia, which China interprets as handing over freedom of writ in Western-Pacific to China. But China is also worried about the possibility of Japan going nuclear, not to mention a BrahMos-armed Vietnam. But then it is China’s aggression against neighbours that is to blame for all this.

This piece was originally published on Indian Defence Review and has been republished here with permission.