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Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance

Lankan Ranger

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Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance

Nothing projects U.S. global air and sea power more vividly than supercarriers. Bristling with fighter jets that can reach deep into even landlocked trouble zones, America's virtually invincible carrier fleet has long enforced its dominance of the high seas.

China may soon put an end to that.

U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China — an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles).

Analysts say final testing of the missile could come as soon as the end of this year, though questions remain about how fast China will be able to perfect its accuracy to the level needed to threaten a moving carrier at sea.

The weapon, a version of which was displayed last year in a Chinese military parade, could revolutionize China's role in the Pacific balance of power, seriously weakening Washington's ability to intervene in any potential conflict over Taiwan or North Korea. It could also deny U.S. ships safe access to international waters near China's 11,200-mile (18,000-kilometer) -long coastline.

While a nuclear bomb could theoretically sink a carrier, assuming its user was willing to raise the stakes to atomic levels, the conventionally-armed Dong Feng 21D's uniqueness is in its ability to hit a powerfully defended moving target with pin-point precision.

The Chinese Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to the AP's request for a comment.

Funded by annual double-digit increases in the defense budget for almost every year of the past two decades, the Chinese navy has become Asia's largest and has expanded beyond its traditional mission of retaking Taiwan to push its sphere of influence deeper into the Pacific and protect vital maritime trade routes.

"The Navy has long had to fear carrier-killing capabilities," said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the nonpartisan, Washington-based Center for a New American Security.

"The emerging Chinese antiship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post-Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose."

Setting the stage for a possible conflict, Beijing has grown increasingly vocal in its demands for the U.S. to stay away from the wide swaths of ocean — covering much of the Yellow, East and South China seas — where it claims exclusivity.

It strongly opposed plans to hold U.S.-South Korean war games in the Yellow Sea off the northeastern Chinese coast, saying the participation of the USS George Washington supercarrier, with its 1,092-foot (333-meter) flight deck and 6,250 personnel, would be a provocation because it put Beijing within striking range of U.S. F-18 warplanes.

The carrier instead took part in maneuvers held farther away in the Sea of Japan.

U.S. officials deny Chinese pressure kept it away, and say they will not be told by Beijing where they can operate.

"We reserve the right to exercise in international waters anywhere in the world," Rear Adm. Daniel Cloyd, who headed the U.S. side of the exercises, said aboard the carrier during the maneuvers, which ended last week.

But the new missile could undermine that policy.

"China can reach out and hit the U.S. well before the U.S. can get close enough to the mainland to hit back," said Toshi Yoshihara, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He said U.S. ships have only twice been that vulnerable — against Japan in World War II and against Soviet bombers in the Cold War.

Carrier-killing missiles "could have an enduring psychological effect on U.S. policymakers," he e-mailed to The AP. "It underscores more broadly that the U.S. Navy no longer rules the waves as it has since the end of World War II. The stark reality is that sea control cannot be taken for granted anymore."

Yoshihara said the weapon is causing considerable consternation in Washington, though — with attention focused on land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — its implications haven't been widely discussed in public.
Analysts note that while much has been made of China's efforts to ready a carrier fleet of its own, it would likely take decades to catch U.S. carrier crews' level of expertise, training and experience.

But Beijing does not need to match the U.S. carrier for carrier. The Dong Feng 21D, smarter, and vastly cheaper, could successfully attack a U.S. carrier, or at least deter it from getting too close.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned of the threat in a speech last September at the Air Force Association Convention.
"When considering the military-modernization programs of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the U.S. symmetrically — fighter to fighter or ship to ship — and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options," he said.

Gates said China's investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, along with ballistic missiles, "could threaten America's primary way to project power" through its forward air bases and carrier strike groups.

The Pentagon has been worried for years about China getting an anti-ship ballistic missile. The Pentagon considers such a missile an "anti-access," weapon, meaning that it could deny others access to certain areas.

The Air Force's top surveillance and intelligence officer, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, told reporters this week that China's effort to increase anti-access capability is part of a worrisome trend.

He did not single out the DF 21D, but said: "While we might not fight the Chinese, we may end up in situations where we'll certainly be opposing the equipment that they build and sell around the world."
Questions remain over when — and if — China will perfect the technology; hitting a moving carrier is no mean feat, requiring state-of-the-art guidance systems, and some experts believe it will take China a decade or so to field a reliable threat.

Others, however, say final tests of the missile could come in the next year or two.

Former Navy commander James Kraska, a professor of international law and sea power at the U.S. Naval War College, recently wrote a controversial article in the magazine Orbis outlining a hypothetical scenario set just five years from now in which a Deng Feng 21D missile with a penetrator warhead sinks the USS George Washington.
That would usher in a "new epoch of international order in which Beijing emerges to displace the United States."

While China's Defense Ministry never comments on new weapons before they become operational, the DF 21D — which would travel at 10 times the speed of sound and carry conventional payloads — has been much discussed by military buffs online.

A pseudonymous article posted on Xinhuanet, website of China's official news agency, imagines the U.S. dispatching the George Washington to aid Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

The Chinese would respond with three salvos of DF 21D, the first of which would pierce the hull, start fires and shut down flight operations, the article says. The second would knock out its engines and be accompanied by air attacks. The third wave, the article says, would "send the George Washington to the bottom of the ocean."

The Associated Press: Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance
 
the Chinese can keep the bomb to themselves I guess, Sinking of an aircraft carrier will lead to global destruction....
 
once again a lame thread on the same missile which was discussed here at least 1000 times,man if u have little sense at least do a search before opening again and again lame threads
 
the Chinese can keep the bomb to themselves I guess, Sinking of an aircraft carrier will lead to global destruction....



Umm, if China is threatened or it's interests in anyway, i think they have the right to use whatever they want, except for Nuclear of course.


I hope this is operational by 2014 and Pakistan can have it's hands on it........
 
once again a lame thread on the same missile which was discussed here at least 1000 times,man if u have little sense at least do a search before opening again and again lame threads



Don't reply if you don't have anything useful to say. I think the Mods are smart enough to know when to close a thread and when to leave it open.

This is the latests news, earlier ones were just speculations. This shows that west is really worried now and that China finally has made progress............i wonder what else they have been building over there.
 
Umm, if China is threatened or it's interests in anyway, i think they have the right to use whatever they want, except for Nuclear of course.


I hope this is operational by 2014 and Pakistan can have it's hands on it........

so it is yet not operational,has it been tested yet,nobody yet dont know about the credibility of the missile but already Chinese and Pakistani member's expect U.S to run away from,feel free to have it,we dont care damn about a missile which is yet not tested
 
Don't reply if you don't have anything useful to say. I think the Mods are smart enough to know when to close a thread and when to leave it open.

This is the latests news, earlier ones were just speculations. This shows that west is really worried now and that China finally has made progress............i wonder what else they have been building over there.

if this is the latest news then why not post in the thread already available,let mods do their job,but i am free to express myself

and an article in AP made u think that west is shivering due to DF-21,have u lately noticed the American navy presence around China,and at a time when U.S had included navigation over South China sea as a matter of national intrest,yes they r definitely shivering and definitely planning to stay away:rolleyes:
 
so it is yet not operational,has it been tested yet,nobody yet dont know about the credibility of the missile but already Chinese and Pakistani member's expect U.S to run away from,feel free to have it,we dont care damn about a missile which is yet not tested



This missile test was the suspect for the UFO that lead to a closure of Chinese Airport... (Hangzhou) i suppose....

An MIT scientist later revealed that this wasn't a UFO but the aerial disruption caused by a missile test...a ballistic trajectory one. Because the US intelligence was expecting a Chinese missile test that week, the scientist who was a weapons expert said it must be a DF-21 test.

(Just like the failed Russian BULAVA BM test, which showed up over Europe)


Hence, the missile has been tested and shows Chinese are willing to go far and wide to test again and again. Few more months and you will see further clarification.



You can always Google it up and i am not even going to bother to post a link here, because you are better off learning yourself!
 
<The Western Media is often hyping the China threat trying to lobby as many countries as possible to suppress China's rise.>

The US military is again lobbying for more money for more exotic weapons. Meanwhile, the ordinary Americans are losing their jobs and homes and being bleed to death by more tax to pay.

The title: Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance is deceptive. Actually, the Pacific power is imbalanced.

When China fields its aircraft carriers and long distant nuclear armed submarines then the title will/should be the Pacific power is balanced.
 
Well all I can say is, RIP
INS Vikramaditya
INS Viraat

The Indian ocean will miss you!
 
Umm, if China is threatened or it's interests in anyway, i think they have the right to use whatever they want, except for Nuclear of course.


I hope this is operational by 2014 and Pakistan can have it's hands on it........

An American carrier is listed as a strategic asset...sinking it will have the same effect as nuking an American base and will draw the same level retaliation.
 
<An American carrier is listed as a strategic asset...sinking it will have the same effect as nuking an American base and will draw the same level retaliation.>

Hey fu&king dude, nobody is nuking anybody. But if the US uses its strategic asset to destroy China then China has the right to use whatever conventional weapon it chooses to neutralize that strategic asset.

NOTE: The aircraft carrier killer is a conventional weapon. So, don't bring up the nuclear sh*t.
 
An American carrier is listed as a strategic asset...sinking it will have the same effect as nuking an American base and will draw the same level retaliation.

Just a thought, what if next time in US doctrine, it lists every military equipment as its strategic asset. This will make everything much easier.
 
^^^ That's what I have been thinking for a long time, but didn't bother to say. Basically it's a paper tiger claim
 
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