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Could It Be That China Is Developing An Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile? And Would The U.S. Tolerate It?

June 28, 2009

Could It Be That China Is Developing An Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile? And Would The U.S. Tolerate It?Martin McCauley writes from the United States: Taiwan is of critical strategic importance to the People’s Republic of China. Geographically it blocks access to the western Pacific. Hence, the Middle Kingdom will do everything in its power to prevent the island becoming an independent state. Its great weakness at present is that the United States navy has the power to intervene if an armed conflict broke out between Beijing and Taipei.There is no way the Chinese navy, at present, could outgun the U.S. navy. That is why the goal of Chinese strategic planners is to possess a system that could deter the U.S. from intervening. It might well be that the Chinese are actually building such a system as you read this. Beijing, it appears is developing a land based anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBN). This will be a novel weapon as no power at present possesses one.
Ideally the missile would have a range of over 1,500km which means that it can cover Taiwan and parts of the western Pacific.

For several decades the U.S. navy had been deploying aircraft carriers to project power in the world’s oceans. During the 1995-96 Chinese missile tests and naval exercises in the Taiwan Strait, the US sent two aircraft carriers to the region. Beijing could not counter the move. The ASBN is designed to prevent a repeat of such a scenario.

If operational, the ASBN, fired from mobile platforms which would be difficult to hit, would give China a capability to deny access to areas well beyond the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone which it now claims.
The U.S. does not have an ASBN. It had the capability to develop one but abandoned this research in the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 1988.
The Second Artillery, China’s strategic rocket forces (both nuclear and conventional), would almost certainly have operational control of ASBNs. The problem is that a decision to fire the ASBNs could escalate a conflict with the U.S. instead of deterring one. Some sources propose that ASBNs should only be used as a warning device. As such it could only be a conventional weapon. However this poses a major problem. How is the U.S. to determine whether the ASBNs were fired as a warning or were perhaps a near miss?

Chinese writing on naval affairs make clear that the country’s leadership has no intention of going to war with the United States. The objective of building up naval power is to have a capability of detering the U.S. Beijing wants good relations with Washington because its primary goal now is the economic development of the country. If China acquires an ASBN arsenal, the hope would be that it would prevent the U.S. from intervening in regions vital to the Middle Kingdom’s strategic interests. The opposite may turn out to be true. ASBNs could escalate tension between the two powers.

China is now faced with a major dilemma: should it add ASBNs to its arsenal? What will the U.S do in such an eventuality? Will Washington regard it as an unfriendly act and beef up Taiwan’s defences? Will the U.S. perceive it as the first step in a chain of events with the objective of restricting American access to East and South East Asia? These are all questions that the Chinese leadership has to answer and make the right decision.

– End –

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One Response to “Could It Be That China Is Developing An Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile? And Would The U.S. Tolerate It?”

  1. Graham Rankin on June 28th, 2009 3:11 pm

    The ASBN is part of a range of weapons on China’s fabled ‘Taiwan Shopping List.’ It’s the package overall that’s intimidating to the US. The anti-satellite system tested two years ago is designed to take out the GPS system, run by the USAF but which will collapse if three or more satellites go down. There’s also the Anti-Spy Satellite laser system, successfully tested last year, and the anti-submarine submarine programme! Then there’s the financial lever of several $trillion in dollars and bonds, that if dumped would hurt both sides, but the threat of wrecking the US economy might matter more to a democracy than to China. Last, but not least, is the multi-billion cyber-warfare project to infiltrate Western computers at every level, including electricity distribution. I’m not paranoid myself, but if I worked for the CIA in Taiwan I’d be on sick leave for hyper-tension!

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