For the first time, China has fired its “aircraft-carrier killer” missile into the South China Sea (SCS) as part of the naval drills being carried out by the military in the disputed region amid aerial reconnaissance by US spy planes. China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. Beijing has also made substantial progress in militarising its man-made islands in the past few years, which it says it has the right to defend.
Beijing claims sovereignty over all of the SCS. But Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan have counterclaims. In the East China Sea, China has territorial disputes with Japan. The SCS and East China Sea are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources. They are also vital to global trade.
China launched two missiles, including an “aircraft-carrier killer”, into the SCS on Wednesday morning, a day after US U-2 spy plane entered a no-fly zone during a Chinese live-fire naval drill in the Bohai Sea off its north coast, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday. One of the missiles, a DF-26B, was launched from the north-western province of Qinghai, while the other, a DF-21D, (aircraft-carrier killer missile) lifted off from Zhejiang province in the east.
Both were fired into an area between Hainan province and the Paracel Islands, the Post quoted Chinese military sources as saying. Paracel Islands fall in the disputed part of the South China Sea.
The DF-26 dual-capable missile is a type of weapon banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by the US and Soviet Union towards the end of the Cold War. When the US withdrew from the treaty last year, it cited China’s deployment of such weapons as justification, the report said.
The DF-26 has a range of 4,000 kilometres and can be used in nuclear or conventional strikes against ground and naval targets. The DF-21 has a range of around 1,800 kilometres, with the state media describing it the most advanced in the series, and the DF-21D, as the world’s first anti-ship ballistic missile.
The missile launch was aimed at improving China’s ability to deny other forces access to the SCS, the report quoted sources as saying. “This is China’s response to the potential risks brought by the increasingly frequent incoming US warplanes and military vessels in the SCS. China doesn’t want the neighbouring countries to misunderstand Beijing’s goals,” the report said.