China holds rare ICBM test in Pacific

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

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China’s military carried out a rare flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday.

The Chinese Defense Ministry said in a brief statement that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force tested the long-range missile with a dummy warhead toward “the high seas in the Pacific Ocean.” The test was a routine launch of an ICBM during annual training,  was “in line with international law” and was not directed at any nation or target, the statement said.

The flight test was unusual in that in the past the Rocket Force conducted flight tests from areas in eastern China toward the Gobi Desert in the western part of the country. The last time China fired a test missile into the Pacific was 1980.

Military analysts said that flight test appeared to have been launched from Hainan Island in the northern South China Sea, where Chinese ballistic missile submarines are based.

That suggests the rocket may have been one of the Chinese military’s new JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missiles that U.S. military commanders have said is part of China’s first credible strategic triad of nuclear forces — land-based ICBMs, submarine-launched missiles and bombers.

Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, a former Pacific Fleet intelligence director, said the test missile was probably a JL-3 and highlights the need to speed up the Pentagon’s own nuclear modernization program.

“If there ever was a call to restore America’s degraded nuclear arsenal, this shot is that call,” he said.

The JL-3 is deployed on Type 094 missile submarines and will be added to future Type 096 missile boats. It has a range of up to 6,200 miles.

The website Geoint.Asia published a map showing the missile traveled about 7,456 miles from Hainan into the Pacific Ocean. The range indicates it was probably DF-41. The track was based on navigational warnings and notice to airmen before the test.

“The test is likely related to China’s upcoming celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1,” stated Geoint.Asia, run by military blogger Duan Dang.

The China-aligned South China Morning Post reported that the missile was either a DF-31 or DF-41 ICBM. Both systems are road-mobile or silo-based missiles that form the backbone of China’s strategic nuclear forces.

ICBM tests launched into the Pacific are rare.

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union once launched a long-range SS-18 ICBM that landed in waters near Hawaii, prompting protests from the United States at the time.

China in May 1980 launched a DF-5 ICBM into the South Pacific in a test firing, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday. A map of the flight published at the time showed the missile landed near the Solomon Islands, Nauru, the Gilbert Islands, Tuvalu, western Samoa, Fiji and the New Hebrides.

The latest ICBM flight test comes amid growing tensions between the United States and China over aggressive Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea and near Japan’s Senkaku Islands. Chinese harassment of Philippine vessels near the disputed Spratly islands is said to be a particular flashpoint. Manila is a defense treaty ally of the United States.

The launch also came as world leaders gathered in New York for the U.N. General Assembly meeting.

Leland Bettis, a defense analyst with the Guam-based Pacific Center for Island Security, said the missile likely passed over the U.S. island in the Pacific, saying the flight path was “not likely a coincidence.”

Guam is a major U.S. military hub and is a target of Chinese intermediate-range DF-26 missiles, according to Chinese state media.

The DF-41 has a range of up to 9,320 miles, enough to reach the United States, and is designed to carry three or more independently targetable warheads.

In April, the Army deployed its Typhoon mid-range capability missile system to the northern Philippines in a joint exercise. China denounced the deployment of the missile, which has a range of over 1,550 miles, enough to hit targets along the populous Chinese coast.

Chinese military commentator Song Zhongping told the South China Morning Post that the test missile was either a DF-31 or DF-41.

“This capability can deter certain countries from attempting nuclear coercion against China,” he said. “This time, the rocket force launched the missile towards a specific area of the Pacific Ocean to test its full trajectory, representing a thorough assessment of the weapon system,” he added.

Rick Fisher, a China affairs analyst, said if the missile was launched near Hainan, it would indicate a JL-3 test — the weapon used on Type 094 submarines parked near Yalong Bay.

If the missile was a DF-41, however, that would suggest the Chinese military is shifting the targeting of nuclear strikes toward India, Australia and other U.S. allies as far west as Africa. A DF-41 launched from that location could also threaten Israel, said Mr. Fisher, an analyst with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

A lack of space-tracking ships in the area during Wednesday’s test also suggests China may be planning to use satellites to gather telemetry data from the missile test.

That means “targeting for future warheads — hypersonic glide vehicles and MIRVs — will be updated on the fly. So this could have been a DF-27 hypersonic glide vehicle ICBM test,” Mr. Fisher said.

China military buildup proceeds despite economic downturn

China’s economic problems have slowed Beijing’s major military buildup, although the difficulties have led to minor cutbacks in some armaments, according to a knowledgeable military source.

The overall buildup of missiles, warships, aircraft and nuclear forces is continuing apace. But Beijing’s mounting economic problems have forced the People’s Liberation Army to begin economizing on what some military leaders have called the largest military modernization of any nation since World War II.

Much of the buildup is focused on restructuring the Chinese military from a large, land-oriented armed force into a high-tech, sea power-dominated force.

Investment in the Chinese military now emphasizes producing advanced aircraft with air-launched missiles; large, diverse and sophisticated missile forces; expanded naval forces; and, increasingly, sophisticated space warfare capabilities.

“That’s what we’ve seen, and we’ve seen this over years and years,” the source said.

The slight decrease has been seen in China’s reduction in the number of weapons systems and number of naval vessels and aircraft being produced. The military is still working to build fifth-generation warplanes and developing air, missile, maritime and space forces.

The rate of the buildup was described as “logarithmic, versus linear” yet still increasing.

China’s economic growth has declined significantly under President Xi Jinping, who has sought to rein in nonstate-controlled business that produced the world’s second-largest economy. Government figures from July showed economic growth slowed to 4.75%, down from 7% to 8% in the 2010s.

China’s problems are blamed on an unbalanced economic model of the past 30 years overly reliant on general investment and housing investment in particular. Nearly half of China’s gross domestic product is based on investment, about double that of other advanced economies. China is also dealing with a real estate crisis, with an estimated 65 million unoccupied housing units, according to American Enterprise Institute expert Desmond Lachman.

China this week announced the launch of a major stimulus program aimed at pulling the economy out its woes.

While there has been some decline in conventional arms, China’s upgrading and modernizing its nuclear forces remain among the most alarming features of the military buildup.

Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of the Strategic Command, told Congress earlier this year that China is developing a new generation of mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, in addition to several types of silo-based and mobile missiles already deployed.

The deployment of land-, sea- and air-based nuclear weapons was described by Gen. Cotton as a nuclear “breakout” — the shift from few nuclear arms to thousands.

“The breakout that we saw and the advancements and how quickly the advancements that we’re seeing in China to rapidly create a viable triad is breathtaking,” he said. A triad is the combination of land-based and sea-based missiles and strategic bombers.

Taiwanese military: China lacks full invasion force

An annual military report produced by the Taiwanese Defense Ministry concludes that the Chinese military has improved capabilities for conducting offensive landing operations on the island, but the People’s Liberation Army still lacks sufficient forces to invade, according to a copy of the report obtained by Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper.

The ministry report was submitted to the Taiwan legislature in August and described Chinese military combat drills in May targeting Taiwan shortly after President Lai Ching-te took office. According to the report, China’s drills sought to promote division and confrontation in Taiwan and affect the morale of the military and the public. The May exercises also used the Chinese coast guard for patrols and inspections of vessels in waters east of Taiwan for the first time, said to be tests of a potential blockade during a military assault on Taiwan.

China has stepped up deployments of new types of anti-ship ballistic missiles and ultra-high-speed hypersonic missiles, which will provide opportunities for strikes against foreign military forces in the seas between the Chinese coast and what Beijing calls the “second island chain” — islands stretching from Japan to Guam, the report said.

The report also disclosed that the Chinese coast guard is being bolstered with new weapons and the addition of small warships from the Chinese navy.

But despite China’s overall buildup, the report concludes that China’s current capabilities are not sufficient to move large amounts of forces across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait that would be needed in a military strike. The lack of amphibious forces and supply capabilities for cross-strait warfare means the Chinese military is “not fully prepared to conduct a full-scale invasion on Taiwan,” the report said.

A military source said one of the lessons China has learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that an assault on Taiwan will be much more difficult than originally anticipated.

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.