China’s defense ministry confirmed on Thursday that high-tech DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles have been deployed with the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force.
The DF-26 is tailor-made for precision offensives as well as swift nuclear counter-attacks – with its nuclear-tipped variant – against land- and sea-based targets.
The new missiles, with a hit range of 3,000-4,000km, are also known as the “Guam Express” among Chinese military buffs. They are the PLA’s first conventionally-armed missiles capable of reaching the US outpost of Guam if fired from China’s southeastern coastline.
But reports by the PLA Daily and Global Times on Friday seem to emphasis that the DF-26’s primary target would be Taiwan secessionists.
Chinese defense ministry spokesperson Wu Qian confirmed during a press conference on Thursday that the DF-26 had joined the combat sequence of the PLA rocket force after tests, adding that the deployment aimed to beef up deterrence against anyone seeking to split Taiwan from China.
Chinese military observers have also been hailing the DF-26’s anti-ship capabilities against US aircraft carriers and amphibious assault vessels.
The DF-26 is deployed on a transporter-erector-launcher and the US Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center estimates that as of June 2017, more than 16 launchers were operationally deployed along a number of coastal provinces from Zhejiang and Fujian all the way to Guangdong.
There have also been rumors that the DF-26 may also have been installed on the Beijing-controlled Scarborough Shoal, also known as Huangyan Island, in the eastern portion of the South China Sea.
Information on the DF-26 since its media debut at a 2015 military parade show that the versatile missiles can look for and lock onto moving targets onshore and offshore, such as an aircraft carrier, while cruising at a top speed of up to 18 times the speed of sound after re-entry into the atmosphere.
This is a feat, apart than the DF-26’s range, that is being trumpeted by Chinese state media, as hitting a moving target in the vast expanses of the open oceans is by no means easy.
But there are still doubts among Western analysts about the capabilities of the seemingly intimidating Chinese missiles.
No other country has successfully deployed such a weapon. Launching such missiles from hundreds, if not thousands of miles away, and hitting a target moving at 20 knots plus that is doing all it can to avoid destruction, is not mean feat, noted Harry Kazianis, executive editor of The National Interest.
Its has been reported that a PLA Rocket Force brigade is equipped with 18 such missiles.
Simple. If you don`t want to find out what this missile can do don`t go to war with China.
Nations don’t go to war to test the capabilities of their adversaries’ weapons. China may chest thump all it wants but remember empty containers make the loudest sounds. The US has been in this global game since the marines stormed the pirates of Tripoli in 1805 and it knows pretty well how to keep its cards close to its chest. China may bulldoze its neighbours but the global stage has only one full grown lion and that is none other than uncle Sam.
Peter Muyonga Shimenga And Uncle Sam’s own generals said:
"We have no defense against China hypersonic weapons". We bragged about our "Freedom of Navigation operations" to the South China Sea only to show our respect to China by NOT entering into the China’s 12-mile limit.
Wonder if there is a Bejing Express equivalent.
Peter Muyonga Shimenga
This weapons are designed to destroy our planet earth not just each other. Nothing else to talk about.
Guam is mainly military while Beijing is not. Targeting civilians is by terrorists and rogue countries only, not by the civilized. Or maybe I missed something…
Not really, these missiles are designed for the big moving target at a long distance, that is, the carriers.