China Unveils Secret Weapon in Beijing, Sends Warships to Bering Sea

China marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II with a parade in Tiananmen Square at which it unveiled a new weapon that has been developed in secrecy for several years, its Dongfeng (East wind) 21D “carrier-killer” missile.

U.S. defense experts fear that the DF-21D missile could shift the balance of power in the western Pacific. Although the missile’s exact capabilities are still unknown to western observers, it has an estimated range of 1,550 km and travels up to 10 times the speed of sound, making it all but impossible to intercept.

Once fired, the DF-21D goes into orbit. After re-entering the atmosphere it homes in on its target, allowing it to strike a moving ship, which is why it is called a ‘carrier killer.’ It threatens to make American aircraft carriers obsolete in the same way naval air power delivered by carriers made battleships vulnerable at Pearl Harbor and the Pacific Theater in World War II.

Richard Fisher, a missile expert at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, warned that the DF-21D has to be considered as part of a broader military build-up by the Chinese. China recently developed a second type of anti-ship missile, a supersonic air-launched cruise missile carried by China’s H-6K bomber.

“You begin to see that decades of Chinese military investment are resulting in capabilities that are changing the balance of power in Asia against the United States,” Mr Fisher said.

Other military experts warn that the DF-21D has never been tested against the full range of countermeasures that a modern aircraft carrier would deploy in a real combat scenario, and that the complex array of sensors, radar, satellites and other equipment it would need to strike a moving target from space would be vulnerable to attack. What no one is debating, however, is that China is creating a ‘blue water’ navy capable of projecting Chinese power into international waters.

Earlier this week, three Chinese combat ships, a support vessel and an amphibious landing ship sailed in a convoy off the coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea. The naval operation by the Chinese navy in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands was unusual, according to Pentagon officials monitoring the ships.

“We respect the freedom of all nations to operate military vessels in international waters in accordance with international law,” said Cmdr. Bill Urban, a Pentagon spokesman, noting: “This is the first time we have observed [People’s Liberation Army Navy] ships in the Bering Sea.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon said that the warships entered U.S. territorial waters and came within 12 nautical miles of the coast.

China’s Defense Ministry said that its five ships sailed to the Bering Sea for training after a joint military exercise with Russia in late August and called the activity “routine”.

Some observers believe China’s incursion into U.S. waters is retaliation for flights by American military jets over the chain of islands known as the Spratlys in the South China Sea. China has been building the islands by piling soil and material from the sea floor on top of natural reefs and rocks with the intent to use the artificial islands for military purposes as it asserts other territorial claims in the region.