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PLA missile interceptor test seen as response to warning from Taipei
- Beijing focused on improving China’s strategic defences rather than building up nuclear arsenal, researcher says
- Interception point said to have been moved closer to Taiwan to ensure it attracted the attention of island’s authorities
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The People’s Liberation Army’s latest test of a ground-based system designed to intercept ballistic missiles indicates China has narrowed the gap in midcourse interceptor technology with the United States and enhanced its strategic deterrence ability, analysts said.
China’s defence ministry announced that the PLA had successfully conducted the sixth test of its land-based anti-ballistic-missile system on June 19 within the country’s borders, said Zhou Chenming, a researcher at the Beijing-based Yuan Wang military science and technology institute.
He said the move indicated Beijing was willing to invest more on missile defence technology similar to the US Ground-based Midcourse Defence (GMD) system, rather than increasing its nuclear arsenal.
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“Developing GMD is the most complicated, difficult and costly way to raise the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, and so far just the US and China are capable of doing that,” Zhou said, adding that China’s ground-based interceptor technology was based on mature US technology and used an intercontinental ballistic missile fitted with a kinetic kill vehicle as the interceptor.
He said China would not drastically increase its arsenal of strategic nuclear warheads to several thousand, as some foreign analysts had speculated, but would focus on developing a comprehensive network of missile-defence systems to protect its infrastructure in the event of a conflict.
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Footage reportedly shows test of China’s missile interceptor
Footage reportedly shows test of China’s missile interceptor
While China insists it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons in any conflict, Zhao Tong, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Beijing would continue to develop a certain number of nuclear warheads to strengthen its capability to hit back after any first strike.
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