Beijing has some 1,000 short-range ballistic missiles around the rebel island, which it is replacing with DF-17s capable of hitting foreign targets in the Western Pacific, experts suggest.
The People’s Liberation Army of China (PLA) is expanding the deployment of modern missile systems near Taiwan, including that of medium-range ballistic missiles DF-17as reported this Sunday by the newspaper The South China Morning Post (SCMP), which quotes military experts.
The PLA is rapidly modernizing its short-range ballistic missiles, capable of hitting targets up to 1,000 kilometers away, replacing them with DF-17 systems, according to a report by Decker Eveleth, a researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, prepared on the basis of publicly accessible satellite images.
According to US intelligence estimates, the DF-17 missiles have a range of between 1,800 and 2,500 kilometers. On the other hand, these are not classic ballistic missiles, since the DF-17 can be mounted on a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV).
This device can carry DF-17 missiles and give it five times the speed of sound. The DF-17’s ability to glide in the atmosphere thanks to HGV it makes it more difficult for air defense radars to detect these missiles than conventional ballistic projectiles that follow a fixed trajectory that lifts them above the atmosphere.
“With the deployment of the DF-17 at Base 61 [de las fuerzas de misiles]the PLA intends to acquire the ability to attack foreign military bases and fleets in the Western Pacific,” says Kapil Kajal, an expert at defense intelligence company Janes Asia-Pacific. The analyst stresses that the DF-17’s performance makes it a very difficult target for US air defense systems such as the THAAD, SM-3 and Patriot to neutralize.
In parallel, Kajal points out that China still has deployed about 1,000 short-range ballistic missiles around Taiwan. In this context, he explains that both these projectiles and the medium-range missiles placed south and southwest of China could be used during a first wave of attacks in the event of a conflict breaking out over the rebel island, considered by Beijing as part of its inalienable territory.
For her part, Eveleth agrees with Kajal regarding the eventual use of the DF-17s in the early stages of a conflict around Taiwan to attack anti-aircraft defense systems on the island and its allies. “But the problem is that many of the US systems are out of range of the DF-17“, the analyst points out, in such a way that these missiles could not reach the US naval base in Guam or other Washington facilities in the Pacific.
The decisive role of the DF-26 missiles
However, the DF-26 anti-ship and anti-land missiles, with a range of at least 3,000 kilometers, could hit the targets in question. “I would say it is the most important missile in the arsenal [chino]. They are building many. That is, an impressive number of DF-26s are being manufactured. And we can see it, in part, because I can look at the production facility and see how the missiles come out,” says Eveleth.
According to Eveleth’s report, a total of seven brigades They have deployed DF-26 missiles in Anhui province, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and elsewhere. In addition, facilities are erected to house another DF-26 brigade in the northeastern province of Liaoning.
The South China Morning Post suggests that the destruction of DF-26 emplacement bases would be a problem for US forces. Also, these missiles are deployed near Chinese nuclear arsenals and can carry warheads both conventional and nuclear. “Any US attempt to neutralize DF-26 forces risks attacking nuclear assets,” Eveleth said.
Meanwhile, while China’s ability to deploy missiles can be tracked via satellite intelligence, there are unknowns about how the PLA would use these arsenals and the causes behind the increase in missiles, the newspaper concludes.
-
The tensions between China and Washington over Taiwan stem from US policy towards the island, which Beijing perceives as aimed at destabilizing regional peace and containing the Asian giant. Beijing has repeatedly called on the US to abide by the one-China principleinternationally recognized and which stipulates that the island is an integral part of Chinese territory.
-
However, Washington interacts with Taiwan at the level of arms sales and trains its military personnel, while several US politicians regularly travel to the island for talks with its leaders, drawing harsh condemnation from Beijing and, according to China, fueling the island’s separatist intentions and increasing regional tension.
Source: RT
