China ramps up missile capability

HONG KONG, China -- China's People's Liberation Army is developing missiles that may soon be capable of penetrating America's proposed national missile defense system as well as threatening U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups.

Sources close to China's military say a major focus of the PLA's ambitious arms development and procurement program is to prevent U.S. forces from "interfering" in the Taiwan Strait -- an area Beijing regards as a purely domestic issue.

Beijing is also anxious to undermine plans by the Pentagon to incorporate America's Asian allies such as Japan and South Korea -- as well as Taiwan -- into an Asia-based missile defense system.

The sources said Beijing's Second Artillery Corps, which is in charge of missile development, has been given extra funds and other resources to develop or import hardware that can successfully target American aircraft carriers.

Chinese strategists believe that should a crisis erupt between both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the U.S. may try to aid Taiwan by moving one or two of its aircraft carrier groups to the Taiwan Strait area.

That was what happened in 1996 when two U.S. carrier groups were deployed at either end of the Strait in an effort to deter any Chinese military action against the island.

To counter that, analysts say, China's strategy focuses on the development of an enhanced medium- and long-range missile capability equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle warheads, also known as MIRVs.

Deterrence

Such technology is seen as essential to bolstering the effectiveness of China's nuclear deterrence as the Bush administration pushes ahead with deployment of missile defense shields.

MIRVs enable a single rocket to launch several warheads and decoys, which then separate in space to hit different targets vastly increasing an individual missile's potential destructive power.

According to a CIA report last year China has about 20 operational long-range missiles, capable of hitting U.S. targets, although all have only single warheads.

The report said China planned to increase that number to over 100 missiles, all equipped with MIRV warheads.

Over the weekend the mass-circulation Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that the PLA had successfully test-launched a medium-range missile equipped with MIRV warheads last December.

The launching of the Dong Feng-21 (DF-21), with a target range of about 1,800 kilometers, was the PLA's first successful test launch of the upgraded missile.

Increasing range

The paper quoted Chinese sources as saying the DF-21 launch indicated a rapid modernization of China's nuclear missile capability aimed at countering the U.S. missile defense network planned for the region.

If the MIRV-equipped missiles are deployed, they could help to deter U.S. intervention in areas that China regards as its own affairs -- notably the Taiwan issue.

The DF-21, about 50 of which have been deployed since the 1980s, is categorized as a medium-range missile.

Hong Kong newspapers have reported that Beijing will begin deploying the DF-31-- a new type of ICBM with a target range of about 8,000 kilometers -- in about two years.

Diplomatic analysts in Beijing say the PLA is anxious to widen the gap between the military capacities of the mainland and Taiwan before the latter has a chance to upgrade its weapons through U.S. help.

Apart from Russia, which is China's biggest arms supplier, military analysts say the PLA has been basing much of its advances in missile technology on imports from Israel and several European countries.

What a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. China got it's most (damaging to the US) technology from the US thanks to Bill Clinton and the Loral Corporation.

I do believe Israel has used poor judgement, and Europe too, but lets get real here. We have nobody to blame more than ourselves. Who the hell financed China's purchases and it's military industrial complex buildup? The United States, that's who. Go no farther to damn some entity.

You have a point Douhgty.

While China would still have managed to get to its current level it would have taken it at least an extra decade had it not been for the US tech transfer during the Clinton years (and i am not just saying that to be on the 'blame it all on clinton' camp, which i am tired of, i am just stating the truth). The transfer of advanced guidance and miniturization tech literally took a decade off Chinese R&D and fiscal spending on that area.

It reminds me of when the Soviet spies Klaus Fuchs and the infamous Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's who stole US hydrogen-bomb technology that allowed the Soviets to detonate their first H-bomb in August of 1953! Without the spies the Soviets would still have got the thermonuclear bomb (after all they had detonated their first atomic bomb in 1949 .....again after 'lifting' some US info). However the H-bomb secrets enabled the Soviets to slice a year (expersts ay it was just a year) off their program ....and a year is still a lot.

China sliced off 10 years, and got on top of that advanced capability.

And unlike the Soviets (who still had to substantial resources in developing the engineering and industrial infrastructure to translate a theoretical design into an actual weapon) the Chinese basic got the whole nine yards! An analogy is that the Soviets got the plans for a Mercedes, and using the plans made their own mercedes clone using their own materials and their own expertise. All they stole was the blueprints. The Chinese on the other hand also got the plans for the mercedes, but they also got the tooling, most of the basic body frame, the engine, gearbox, and some of the more advanced innards! All the Chinese have to do is get their own upholstery.

The aboveis an extremely crude analogy but it should show what happened.

What China got from Israel is basically nothign they could not get themselves. Even the Israeli Lavi- Chinese J10 controversy, which is really not that big since both the US and Russia have ways of taking care of the Lavi; and as for the sale of Python-3 AAM missiles by Israel it should be noted that Israel now uses Python-4s. The same more or less applies for Russia. Russia knows China is its greatest threat for the next century or so! Hence everything Russia sells China is under strict FMS security deletion protocol (it is like the US selling military tech to iraq .....the stuff would be crap. A good example of this is the F-14s sold to Iran whihc had what i like to call 'engine deficiencies' LOL). The only nation Russia sells 'good stuff' to is India, and it has been that way for almost 2 decades now. China can obviously reverse-engineer the Russian and Israeli stuff (as it has been doing with the Israeli pythons and the Russian R-73s, but reverse-engineered AAMs are not as big a threat as ICBM technology. Personally i would rather face a nation with good AAMs than even basic nuclear ICBMs). As for Europe those guys (especially France) would sell their own grandma's soul for the right price, but i would not be too worried.

Anyways the biggest coup for the Chinese was the American technology.

It is time for the ABM defenses to be set up!

'nuff said!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.