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A Chinese hypersonic missile reportedly fired a separate projectile at five times the speed of sound. US experts are shocked.
Munich – China’s military is already one of the most powerful armies in the world. Nevertheless, the “People’s Liberation Army” continues to arm itself. The military development also includes special high-tech projects, because Beijing is much more about quality and technology than quantity. In the future, China’s army should not only be the strongest or largest, but also the most modern in the world.
Big steps in this direction are already being taken. The last link in the chain: the test of a hypersonic missile at the end of July. Reports of the launch of a test on a Chinese high-speed slider astonished US officers. Now their worries intensify and turn into a real state of shock about Chinese capabilities – because apparently the rocket has performed a maneuver that, according to the US media, may go beyond the “limits of physics”.
China’s hypersonic missile: American experts puzzled over Beijing gliders – Pentagon worried
The test as well as the development of Chinese weapons surprised officials in the US Department of Defense, reported Financial Times (FT) and Wall Street Journal. The test doesn’t appear to be a regular one, as statements from US officials suggest. According to American officials, the Chinese rocket orbited the earth in low orbit and launched a hypersonic glider. Finally the spectacular part followed: The glider is said to have fired a separate projectile at five times the speed of sound.
US media described China’s achievement as a previously “unprecedented” ability. Now experts in Washington DC would study how Beijing managed to demonstrate such a development. For Pentagon experts, the exact circumstances of the test start are so far unclear, the US officials told FT. The US experts are therefore also in the dark about the purpose of the separate projectile. An air-to-air missile or anti-missile countermeasures are plausible explanations, according to the American media.
“This development worries us and should also concern everyone else who is striving for peace and stability in the region,” a spokesman for the US Security Council stressed FT.
China denies the test of a hypersonic missile – “no interest in the arms race with other countries”
Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Washington denied reports of a high-speed missile test. The embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu instead made allegations against the United States.
“We are not interested in an arms race with other states,” he said. The US is inventing excuses like “the Chinese threat” to justify its own weapons expansion and development of hypersonic missiles, the spokesman said. Beijing claimed the test was not a rocket but a reusable spacecraft and has denied the reports in the American media.
USA previously described China’s test of a hypersonic missile as a “Sputnik moment” – the chief of staff speaks of “full attention”
China also tested a hypersonic missile in August. The test was confirmed by the Pentagon in October. It was the “very significant event of the test of a hypersonic weapon system,” said Chief of Staff Mark Milley. The test was “very worrying,” it said at the time.
Milley drew a comparison with the so-called Sputnik shock of 1957 – the first completely surprising flight of a Soviet Sputnik satellite through earth orbit for the West. Although he does not know whether the test of the Chinese hypersonic missile is completely equivalent to a “Sputnik moment”, the test comes “very close” to it. It is a “very significant technological event” which the United States followed with “full attention”.
The USA, Russia, North Korea and at least four other countries are also working on hypersonic missile technology. Like ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles can carry nuclear weapons. However, while ballistic missiles fly in a high arc, hypersonic missiles remain in low orbit. They are also remotely controlled and can change their trajectory, which makes launching missile defense systems much more difficult. (bb with material from afp)
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