China tests missile – but here’s why it wasn’t a next-generation JL-3
- Sunday’s test firing involved mid-range Dongfeng missile with improved guidance systems
- It coincided with the last day of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s biggest security forum
A missile test by the People’s Liberation Army on Sunday did not feature the country’s next-generation long-range weapon, but instead involved a mid-range Dongfeng missile refitted with improved guidance systems, according to Beijing military sources.
The test was not publicly announced but coincided with a notice issued by the Liaoning Maritime Safety Administration last week declaring the Bohai Bay area – the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea in northeast China – off-limits to marine traffic from the early morning until noon on Sunday.
The notice triggered speculation among military observers that China might have test-fired its next generation, submarine-launched, strategic JL-3 missile.
Soon after the test, Chinese social media was flooded with messages from people claiming they had spotted a UFO and images of a flying object with a long white tail of smoke in the sky.
On Monday, the PLA’s Rocket Force, the unit that runs China’s missile programme, posted a photo of a missile on a mobile launcher on Weibo, the Twitter-like microblogging platform, accompanied by the rhetorical question: “Do you believe in UFOs?”