A photo released by China’s People’s Liberation Army News and Communications Center shows an ICBM carrying a dummy warhead launched from an unknown location on Wednesday. | Photo credit: AFP
China test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday (September 25, 2024) in a rare incident, raising tensions in the region where several countries have overlapping territorial claims and Beijing and Washington are pursuing the project. influence.
The launch was part of a routine exercise by the Rocket Force of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is responsible for conventional and nuclear missile operations, and was not aimed at any country or target, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, landed in a designated area in the sea, the Ministry said, without specifying exactly where.
China has rarely tested an ICBM in international waters, with some experts tracing its last deployment to May 1980, when Beijing launched a DF-5 missile into the South Pacific. Usually, the PLA tests ballistic missiles in China’s remote Xinjiang region or in the Bohai Sea.
China chose the Pacific Ocean as the location for its missile tests as a display of its increased nuclear capabilities and as a warning to the United States and its allies in the region, experts said.
“There is no other potential audience, because China does not expect to have to confront the EU or the UK militarily,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London.
Regional tensions
The test also comes weeks before an expected phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden. It marks an increase in regional security tensions with US allies Japan and the Philippines, and continued friction with the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday it was monitoring the missile launch, along with other military exercises by China in the region.
The launch, coinciding with a meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, “is an unequivocal signal” to the international order, said Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and a former US defense official. . “China is signaling that patience has its limits, that it is ready to use the most powerful weapons to deter the enemy or to punish if necessary, if deterrence fails,” he said.
Wednesday’s launch also follows a series of corruption arrests this year that have implicated several top officers in the rocket corps over allegations of wrongdoing. The goal may be to provide reassurance at home and signal to the world that the problem is over.
China has the world’s largest army and largest navy. Its military budget is the second highest in the world, after the US. According to the US, China also has the largest air force in the Indo-Pacific, with more than half of its combat aircraft consisting of fourth or fifth generation models.
For more than a decade, Mr Xi, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission, has led the modernization of the armed forces, with investments in high-tech military technology from stealth fighters to aircraft carriers and a growing arsenal. nuclear weapons. A US Defense Department report last year said China continues to strengthen the PLA’s ability to “fight and win battles against strong adversaries.”
The US report also estimates that China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads by May 2023 and is on track to amass more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030. China has not disclosed the size of its nuclear arsenal.
By comparison, Russia is believed to have a total inventory of more than 5,580 warheads – including 4,380 stockpiles of warheads for operational forces, as well as an additional 1,200 retired warheads awaiting dismantling – according to a report this year by the Federation of American Scientists. The same report puts the US nuclear warheads at 5,044.
Few countries have ICBMs in their arsenals, and tests are usually limited to their own territories. North Korea has conducted a series of ICBM tests since 2017, including firing a development solid-fuel missile in December that landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
The US earlier this year fired two unarmed ICBMs equipped with re-entry vehicles from California and brought them down on an American test site in the Marshall Islands.
Published – 27 September 2024 10:35 IST
