South China Sea: Chinese military deploys ballistic missile’s launchers for training

Name: Washington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensions
Uploaded: 2021-01-25T16:30:10.000Z
Duration: 2 min 32 s
Description: Washington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensions

Destinations of DF-26 missile’s launchers put India within its range and pose a threat to US naval base in Japan

China had last year staged a drill in which a DF-26 missile was launched into the South China Sea to target a moving ship

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Launchers for the DF-26 missiles have been sent to two sites for training. Photo: Xinhua

Minnie Chan

Published: 12:30am, 26 Jan 2021Updated: 2:16am, 26 Jan 2021

China has deployed a large number of launchers for its new advanced intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) to the country’s eastern and western areas for intensive training, as it and the United States continue their posturing over the disputed South China Sea.

Satellite images by Maxar Technologies showed the Chinese military had deployed many DF-26 IRMB launchers to a training site in Shandong province in the east, according to a report by the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists (FAS) on Thursday, adding it was the first time it had seen the DF-26 operating in the area.

Last week, Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Canada-based Kanwa Defence Review, said in a YouTube video that China’s Rocket Force had deployed about 16 launchers for the DF-26 IRBM to its Qingzhou base in Shandong and another in Korla, in the far-western Xinjiang region.

Chang had said the locations put India – with which China has been involved in a months-long border stand-off – within its range and posed a threat to the United States’ naval base in Yokosuka and other military outposts in Japan.

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Washington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensions

The DF-26 IRMB is a mobile-road ballistic missile armed with a conventional or nuclear warhead with a range of 5,000km (miles).

Chang said China had built two huge warehouses for the DF-26, indicating large deployment to the border area, but Chinese military expert Zhou Chenming said the DF-26 was in Korla for training, given the “missile shooting range in the uninhabited Gobi desert”. Zhou added: “It’s not the first time the DF-26 has been there, but the first time pictured by satellites.”

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