Joe Varner
China’s latest military parade , which took place in Beijing on September 3, was never simply a commemoration of wartime sacrifice against Japan and the Axis powers. It was a carefully choreographed show of force directed at Washington, America’s Asian allies, and India, as well as Chinese audiences at home and abroad.
With Chinese President Xi Jinping flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the optics were blunt: China intends to be treated as a global military peer, to set the foundations of a new world order, and it wants the Western world to take note.
The parade’s centrepiece was the public unveiling of China’s maturing nuclear triad. New intercontinental ballistic missiles – the DF-61 and DF-31BJ – rolled down Chang’an Avenue alongside the JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile and the smaller air-launched JL-1. This sent the message that China can now credibly claim a land, sea, and air second-strike capability. For the United States, the surprise appearance of the DF-61 – unknown until this event – raises questions about what else Beijing is holding back and complicates strategic planning. Washington must now assume that China’s deterrent is more survivable and diverse than previously acknowledged.
At the regional level, the display was dominated by hypersonic weapons. Variants of the DF-26 intermediate-range missile, already nicknamed the “Guam killer,” were joined by a family of anti-ship systems, from the ramjet-powered YJ-15, to the hypersonic YJ-17, YJ-19, YJ-20, and YJ-21. The DF-17, carrying a maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicle, rounded out the picture.
These weapons are designed to target U.S. carrier strike groups, regional bases, and allied fleets across the western Pacific. What this means for U.S. allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia is that the cost of intervention in any Taiwan or South China Sea contingency has gone up, and warning times have gone down.
No comments:
Post a Comment