China Developing New Missiles, U.S. Says

China is developing a new generation of ballistic and cruise missiles that could be fired at aircraft carriers and other warships, according to an annual U.S. Defense Department report on the Chinese military released yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 1, 2006).

“I think the biggest thing for people to be concerned about, really, is the fact that we don’t have that kind of strategic understanding of the Chinese intentions,” said Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary David Sedney.  “And that leads to uncertainty.  That leads to a readiness to hedge against the possibility that China’s development will go in ways that the Chinese right now say it won’t.”

In 2007, Beijing’s defense spending fell somewhere between $97 and $139 billion, more than twice the amount declared in its official $45 billion defense budget, Agence France-Presse reported. 

Some funds are being used for “counterspace” measures to defend against  the potential space-based armaments of another nation, the report says.  The report expresses concern about a Chinese antisatellite demonstration that targeted a low-orbiting weather satellite in January 2007 as well as civilian space programs that could be tapped for military use (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2007).

To gain the ability to hit warships “from great distances,” China is working on a modified version of the CSS-5 medium-range ballistic missile, which has a range of 930 miles, the report says.

China’s military advantage over Taiwan continues to grow, the report says.  Beijing had between 990 and 1,070 short-range ballistic missiles aimed across the Taiwan Strait last November, along with 490 military aircraft within striking distance of Taiwan (Jim Mannion, Agence France-Presse/Google News, March 4).

The report adds that a new generation of transportable Chinese ballistic-missile submarines and mobile ICBMs “will create new command and control challenges for China’s leadership, now confronted with a different set of variables related to release and deployment authorities,” the Washington Times reported.

The Pentagon noted that China’s military “has only a limited capacity to communicate with submarines at sea and the PLA Navy has no experience in managing [a nuclear missile submarine] fleet that performs strategic patrols.”

China’s strategic missile forces have experienced control “issues” related to mobile missile launchers, the report says, noting scenarios in recent drills “in which missile batteries lose communication links with higher echelons and other situations that would require commanders to choose alternative launch locations.”

“Pentagon concerns over China’s command and control of nuclear forces are growing,” said one Pentagon official, adding that the concerns of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates were shared by his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld.

China has kept its procedures for handling and firing nuclear weapons shrouded in secrecy.  Its arsenal is made up of about 130 nuclear warhead missiles that  include 20 CSS-4 ICBMs.

The Pentagon report reveals that China has deployed roughly 10 road-mobile DF-31 long-range nuclear missiles and could begin operating as many as five Jin-class ballistic missile submarines holding between 10 and 12 JL-12 long-range missiles.

Nuclear weapons policy and strategies are “an area that really needs a lot more discussion” between Beijing and Washington, Sedney said, noting that the United States might open related discussions with China within two months (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, March 4).

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang accused the Pentagon of distorting facts and meddling in China’s domestic affairs, Reuters reported.

“This U.S. report advocates the China threat theory and is seriously not in accordance with the facts and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” Qin said at a press briefing.

“We demand the U.S. abandons Cold War thinking and correctly recognizes China and China’s development and revises the mistaken ways of the report,” he said.  “We are extremely dissatisfied” (Ben Blanchard, Reuters, March 4).

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.