Tag Archive for: ICBM

China’s missile test demonstrates disrespect for Pacific

China’s launch of a missile with a dummy warhead across the Pacific on 25 September and responses from Beijing and Paris reveal a lack of respect for Pacific island countries.

Not only did China demonstrate its disconnect from the Pacific in an unnecessary show of military force; it reminded others that even in the Pacific, it does not prioritise relationships with Pacific island countries.

The missile launched from China travelled nearly 12,000km, passing close to or over Pacific island countries and landing 700km from French Polynesia, a semi-autonomous overseas territory of France.

China notified Australia, France, New Zealand and the US of the impending launch. This selective view of powers in the Pacific reveals China’s show of force to have been a blunt message intended for Western audiences, as if they were the only ones that mattered. China ignored the Pacific islands the missile overflew or came close to and maybe didn’t even think of the message they could receive, that they could be potential targets.

Despite China’s enthusiastic investments in Pacific island countries, it clearly does not prioritise its relationships with them and its interests don’t align with those of the region.

France also should consider whether it could do better. Despite being notified by China, Paris apparently failed to pass the information on to French Polynesian leaders and later gave no clear statement of its position on the launch. Instead, France’s high commissioner in French Polynesia, Eric Spitz, downplayed the significance of the launch, noting that the payload had been inert and had fallen in international waters and that China had given France notice. Only ‘if they see it fit, at an appropriate time, would French authorities make their position known on this launch’, Spitz added.

In contrast, the president of French Polynesia, Moetai Brotherson, expressed ‘disappointment on the fact that we had not been informed about this launch’. It is a double disappointment for French Polynesian leaders. They are right to expect clear communication from Paris, and they should have the full backing of Paris when they need to speak out. Brotherson says he will seek clarification from the high commission and French President Emmanuel Macron and personally express his concerns to the local Chinese delegation.

Only on 18 October did Spitz express his regret that Papeete was not informed, but he reaffirmed his position that ‘China respected international law’. Spitz’s apparent consistent lack of concern is in stark contrast to Brotherson’s position. Paris should not speak for Papeete, but it should show support for the latter’s concerns.

Those who did publicly criticise the test included Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, New Zealand and Palau. Kiribati’s response was a reminder of Pacific priorities and partnerships. Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, sometimes characterised in media reporting as China’s Pacific ally, was clear on his stance against the launch in a statement published by his office. The presidential office took issue with not getting notice of the test. The statement also highlighted that Kiribati’s position against weapon testing is the same ‘at the regional and international stage and it is the same at the bilateral level’.

That is to say that Kiribati does not take sides. Rather, Kiribati’s priority is Kiribati, and its leaders and government will speak out when partners act against its interests. Simplistic views of Kiribati’s foreign relations will only make it more sceptical of those claiming to be its partners.

In response, the Chinese embassy in Kiribati dismissed notification as unnecessary, as the test ‘was not meant to target Kiribati or any other country in the Pacific’. To believe this requires intentionally forgetting that Australia, France, New Zealand and the US were warned. In taking this attitude, China failed to recognise that its actions were unwelcome or to concretely respond to Kiribati’s complaints.

The failure to effectively engage with repeated messages from Pacific island countries about the test is a further sign of China’s deprioritisation of Pacific island countries themselves in its approach to the Pacific region. Rather than engage with them, China acts as if it expects them to unquestioningly accommodate its interests and behaviour.

Fijian Minister of Home Affairs Pio Tikoduadua explicitly mentioned the issue of respect. ‘If countries of the world want respect, then you know, we should be giving respect first,’ he said.

It may have been a message for China, but it is one that other powers in the Pacific should take note of.

What we can tell from China’s ICBM test

China’s decision to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the Pacific Ocean on 25 September was unusual—but not very unusual, because the country has similarly tested shorter-range ballistic missiles over a variety of geographies.

Still, the event calls for explanation, since it was the first ICBM test into the Pacific since 1980, and an operational weapon of that class would be capable of delivering a strategic nuclear warhead. The test was not quite ‘routine’, as the armed forces called it.

Some possible explanations are geopolitical; another is simply that the armed services needed to demonstrate operational readiness.

The weapon deployed a dummy warhead that landed near French Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean.

Images from the test, first shared on the official WeChat account of the People’s Liberation Army, suggest there was no fixed launch pad on which the launch vehicle was placed. China’s newest ballistic missiles are carried in vehicles that transport them, erect them for firing and launch them (and are therefore called TELs).

The TELs also have an adaptive launch tube with an extendable rubber base that absorbs the force from the launch—again, substituting for a fixed launch pad.

The plume of smoke surrounding the launcher, seen in the images, indicates a cold launch. This means the missile was hurled from the canister by an external gas generator. Its rocket motor did not fire until the weapon was in the air. This method leaves the launcher with little or no damage and therefore available for re-use.

Most advanced Chinese ICBMs would be designed for cold launch, so the tested missile need not have been a DF-41, even though most commentary assumes that it was of that type, which is China’s most modern. The missile could have been of the DF-31A type or the more advanced DF-31AG version.

Open-source research suggests the range of the missile was between 11,500km and 11,700km and that its landing site was about 800km from the French Polynesian city of Bora Bora. Since the range of the DF-31A and DF-31AG is estimated at 11,000-plus km and the DF-41’s between 12,000km and 15,000km, the tested missile could have been of any of those designs.

The test cannot have been exactly routine, since the last Chinese ICBM that flew into the Pacific, a DF-5, was launched 44 years ago. But China has often tested smaller missiles over long ranges. The key difference was that the latest test was announced as part of the training plan of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, the service that operates ground-launched strike missiles.

That means the test was supposed to be a combat preparedness exercise. The rocket force’s performance was part of that; this was not just an equipment test by technicians from scientific departments of the Central Military Commission.

If reports of slackness and corruption in the rocket force are true, the service may be under unusual pressure to prove its competence.

Test-firing the ICBM could also have been intended to express China’s resolution in the face of worsening relations with other countries.

Meeting Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo in Laos in August, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed strong concerns over the placement of a US Typhon non-nuclear missile battery in the Philippines. US and Philippine officials confirmed on the day of the test that the Typhon battery would stay.

Another possible motivation for the test was US affirmation in July of its nuclear backing for the defence of Japan.

Could it be that a US ICBM test failure prompted China to do a test, just so it could show that, unlike the US, it could? Last year, the US had to abort a test over the Pacific of a Minuteman III ICBM due to ‘anomalies’ in the launch. In April 2020 the Chinese navy ostentatiously sailed an aircraft carrier past Taiwan while a US carrier was kept at Guam due to a Covid-19 outbreak.

With regional tensions simmering, demonstrations of Chinese missile capability may become more frequent.

Can US missile-defence systems handle China’s new missiles?

A pair of reports in the Financial Times have set the defence community abuzz with the suggestion that China has tested a new hypersonic glide vehicle, possibly with a fractional orbital bombardment system, or FOBS. Two possible tests—one potentially as early as 27 July and a second on 13 August—involved a Chinese Long March 2C orbital launch vehicle blasting off and flying a south polar trajectory into low-earth orbit. The rocket released a hypersonic glide vehicle that circled the globe in low polar orbit before de-orbiting and landing several kilometres from its target. China claims that it was a test of a spaceplane under its Tengyun program, but the nominated date of 16 July doesn’t match up with the launch activity observed later that month and in August.

FOBS is not a new idea. The Soviet Union explored the possibility of firing ballistic missiles over Antarctica to attack the United States from the south, rather than from the north over the Arctic, during the Cold War. An early system was deployed but soon withdrawn from service when Soviet efforts turned to modernising their intercontinental ballistic missile force and introducing independently manoeuvring multiple warheads, or MIRVs, to complicate US defensive measures. The US considered the idea, but never deployed a FOBS capability, and has always favoured traditional ICBMs that fly over the Arctic.

But FOBS might be back. The Russians have suggested a FOBS capability for the SS-28 Sarmat heavy ICBM that will replace the SS-18 Satan, and now it looks like China may be pursuing a FOBS too, though one that replaces traditional MIRVs with hypersonic glide vehicles. It’s the FOBS–HGV combination that’s new and has led to a lot of guessing by China watchers and arms-control advocates about what the test entailed and what China’s intent is in pursuing such a capability.

A FOBS capability, especially if combined with a highly manoeuvrable hypersonic glide vehicle, would enable the Chinese to circumvent existing and likely planned US missile-defence and early warning systems. They would go through the back door, rather than try to bash down the defended and watched front door. Understanding the architecture of US early warning and defence systems helps illuminate why China would test a FOBS–HGV capability now.

US missile early warning starts with a network of infrared satellites that can detect a launch of an ICBM and track it through its flight. At the same time, upgraded early warning radars at Beale Air Force base in California, Fylingdales in the UK and Thule in Greenland, along with the Cobra Dane phased-array radar in Alaska and a range of other sensors, give radar tracks that cue missile interceptors for a mid-course intercept.

The US national missile defence system currently consists of 40 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska and four at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California, with 20 more to be deployed by 2023. The system is designed to defeat a limited raid from North Korean ICBMs, not a large-scale Chinese or Russian nuclear attack. However, Beijing is clearly anxious about US defensive measures.

For China, the concern driving a FOBS–HGV capability must be that US missile defence will expand and become more effective over time, particularly if an expanded ground-based interceptor force were to be combined with ship-based SM-3 interceptors.

China’s nuclear arsenal is small in comparison with the US’s, though the recent discovery of large fields of missile silos under construction in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia suggests that China is moving away from a ‘minimum deterrent’ posture and might be debating caveats on its no-first-use policy. Greater numbers of both silo-based and road-mobile ICBMs, if combined with a niche FOBS-HGV component that can strike the US from the south, would certainly overwhelm any likely US missile defence architecture. That would strengthen Chinese deterrence against US non-nuclear strikes against China’s nuclear forces, demonstrating that even an expanded US capability to counter any residual Chinese nuclear retaliation wouldn’t prevent a Chinese retaliation from inflicting massive damage. Of course, even a limited nuclear capability such as the one being developed by the North Korea changes decision-making, so the perceived need for Chinese nuclear expansion is less rational.

Despite hyperbolic headlines in the media, suggesting that this was a ‘Sputnik moment’, a Chinese FOBS capability isn’t a fundamental game-changer in nuclear stability. Yet it’s not unimportant or irrelevant either. The US will need to respond to this increased threat.

President Joe Biden and his administration would be very unwise to now adopt a nuclear no-first-use posture, or a ‘sole purpose’ declaration as part of its nuclear posture review to be released in 2022. Such a stance would dramatically weaken extended nuclear deterrence, and if such a step were made against a backdrop of Chinese (and Russian) nuclear build-up and force posture changes, it would send the wrong signal to allies looking for US leadership and resolve, especially after the debacle of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Nor should the Biden administration cancel the ground-based strategic deterrent program that would replace ageing Minuteman ICBMs. Any rush to scrap ICBMs and turn the US nuclear triad into a dyad would only make it easier for an adversary to deliver a decisive nuclear blow in a crisis, even if it couldn’t deliver a knockout punch due to US Navy ballistic missile submarines.

The US should look at options for expanding its missile early warning and missile tracking coverage to deal with hypersonic glide vehicles and threats such as FOBS. Continued development of infrared surveillance satellites will be important, including the ‘next-generation overhead persistent infrared’ (known as ‘Next Gen OPIR’) constellation that will eventually complement the current space-based infrared system. Ground-based sensors such as the upgraded early warning radar network could also be expanded to cover southern launch trajectories from China and Russia.

The FOBS–HGV test presents a challenge but also an opportunity for AUKUS. The projected orbital path from China to the US passes very close to the west coast of Australia. One step that Canberra could take would be to offer to host a US enhanced early warning radar in Western Australia as a joint facility to allow Australia to play an even greater role in supporting US deterrence. Such a facility could complement the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar network and be a key sensor in the Defence Department’s integrated air and missile defence project (AIR 6500 Phase 2). But the challenge would be for Australia to act quickly to establish such a facility, rather than make it a decades-long process that renders such a move irrelevant.

In considering how to proceed with AIR 6500 Phase 2, it’s clear that having a resilient space-based sensor layer is vital to track fast-moving missile threats, especially those heading in Australia’s direction. Another good move that could be done via AUKUS would be for Australia to work with the US on Next Gen OPIR capabilities, including through sovereign satellite manufacture and launch to augment and reconstitute lost capability in a crisis. Such steps would be early and highly visible achievements for AUKUS, reinforcing the relevance of the new agreement, which is currently struggling with the question of how to facilitate Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines.