China’s Hypersonic Trajectory: Developing Critical Offensive Capabilities
Ever since China has set on an unprecedented wave of growth and development, no move by it fails to make it to the global headlines and causes uproars regularly. China has left no domain untouched from its reach and is relentlessly following land to air, sea to space developments in its quest to replace the hegemon and emerge as a "Super Power". This time, it has been the case following China's alleged hypersonic missile launch that orbits the earth before reaching its target. This feat has taken even the "U.S. Intelligence Agency by surprise".
Hypersonic missiles might sound like a fancy name to the traditional security readers, but they have become a prominent point of trigger the "New Arms Race". Hypersonic weapons are the ones that can travel at speeds of over 5 Mach and are generally of two types: Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGM) and Hypersonic Cruise Missile (HCM). HGVs are launched into the upper atmosphere using a ballistic missile and then removed from the booster to glide towards the target. An HCM can be launched using a plane, jet or rocket to reach the desired supersonic speed before its scramjet engine gets ignited for hypersonic speed.
China is continuously manifesting the idea that a lead in hypersonic weapons would give it the desired edge over its rival and help shape the contours of its strategic environment. The quest for hypersonic weapons development can be traced to the early 2000s when China started working on Hypersonic Shock Tunnel Development. To facilitate the research and development of hypersonic weapons, the Institute of Mechanics (IMECH) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) started a program aimed at making a "shock tunnel reproducing hypersonic flight conditions" in 2008. This tunnel became operational in 2012 and was used in the development of Starry Sky. The information available in the public domain shows that Starry Sky-2 can carry nuclear warheads and travels almost six times the speed of sound. Furthermore, the famous JF-12 tunnel can replicate flight conditions between Mach 5-9 speeds and altitudes of 25 kilometres. Moreover, the test time of the tunnel is over 130milliseconds, which makes it supportive of shock structures, data collection of the flow field, and several aerodynamics parameters.
The Chinese media never shies from boasting about the performance of JF-12. They have claimed that it is superior to NASA's Hypersonic Tunnel Facility (HTF), albeit these mentions have no grounding. The most prominent feature of JF-12 is the five-degree of freedom mechanism, a part that NASA had long back in the 1980s. Likewise, the 130ms testing time claims is outpaced by NASA's shock tunnel for the X-43A vehicle, which has the capacity to endure similar conditions for a longer duration. Nevertheless, China has continued working on the advancement of its hypersonic weapons and technology. The group at IMECH's is currently working on JF-22 "detonation-driven ultrahigh speed and high enthalpy shock tunnel", and along with JF-12, they can cover almost all hypersonic flight profiles. Hence, a lot of eyes are already placed after JF-22.
At present, China's hypersonic delivery vehicles have features that allow carrying both conventional and nuclear munitions, along with improved attacks on mobile and high-value targets compared to non-hypersonic missiles. In addition, hypersonic weapons are complicated to intercept for the given ballistic missile defence system that the United States and its allies possess. The ballistic missile defence system, which was considered a game-changer only a few decades back, is strictly designed to tackle the ballistic missiles that follow a more predictable and defined trajectory in outer space or cruise missiles that are slow and flying near the earth's surface. Therefore, the introduction of hypersonic weapons from the Chinese end changes the status quo of security structure and triggers a security balance crisis in the international order.
A blessing in disguise for China has been the fact that it remained untouched from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which prohibited the United States from acquiring, making, testing, or placing any ground-launched ballistic cruise missile with ranges of 500-5,00km, which are considered as a trigger for the regional security domain. Albeit the United States have a sufficient number of strategic missiles to deliver nuclear warheads at intercontinental ranges of 5,500km, or even more, its forward bases near China, that is, in Asia, rely solely on shorter-range missiles that were developed during the Cold War. Whereas, as reported by U.S. agencies, China has managed to deploy nearly 1,250 intermediate-range missiles like DF-26 "Guam Express" ballistic missiles, DF-21D "Carrier Killer",, YJ-12 and YJ-18 supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, and several other subsonic cruise missiles.
Unlike before, when China worked like an underdog away from the limelight, it left no stone unturned to show its strength to put up a broad daylight show. It displayed DF-17s medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), designed to launch DF-ZF at the National Day Parade in 2019. It is being speculated that China has plans to deploy HGVs on longer-range ballistic missiles, along with DF-41 intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) that can reach the U.S. mainland. China has made HGVs an integral part of its larger nuclear strategy and is in no two minds about the breakthrough these developments would give to the Chinese Defense System and make the penetrating enemy zone a cakewalk.
The head of U.S. Northern Command argued how China is testing an intercontinental-range hypersonic glide missile vehicle that is pretty similar to Russia's Avangard. China has a traditional reentry vehicle that can carry multiple warheads on a single ballistic missile. An HGV that carries comparatively fewer warheads but has better maneuverability; put together, they will help China have a thorough edge over their enemy's missiles defence system. Furthermore, it would not be a surprise if PLA Navy (PLAN) replicates Russia's ship launch Tsirkon hypersonic capabilities and accouter its JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear-armed HGVs to elevate its nuclear deterrence.
China has outpaced both Russia and the U.S. in the race of high technology capabilities and is further working on building wind tunnels that would be the fastest in the world and help replicate hypersonic flight conditions on the ground. Furthermore, Chinese scientists have tested several aerodynamic features that influence flight performance and have tried different variations of scaled-down hypersonic aircraft, namely D18-1S, D18-2S, D18-3S. In addition to working on HGVs, they are also working on improving HCMs power projection capability.
To conclude, Hypersonic missiles have the potential to reach their targets from a broader range of locations. They can facilitate follow on attacks by conventional strike systems while damaging the enemy's air and missile defence systems. These developments put the U.S. deterrence network in China's vicinity at risk while also hinting at the evolved nature of the arms race that spreads over new horizons of unconventional weapons. The United States, though not entirely at a weak end, has some passive system in place, but it would need to work aggressively on measures and techniques that disrupt hypersonic data networks and links, sensors that are space-based to detect missiles in the upper atmosphere, and technology that can intercept these weapons. Nevertheless, technology is an ever-growing field, and what might appear as China's "Sputnik Moment" can anytime flip to become an "everyday feat" in the international sphere.
REFERENCES
1. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2020 (Arlington, VA: Department of Defense, September 1 2020), https://media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF.
2. Jacob Stokes, “China’s Missile Program and U.S. Withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Updated February 4, 2019, p.5, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China%20and%20INF_0.pdf.
3. Paul Bernstein and Dain Hancock, “China’s Hypersonic Weapons,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, January 27, 2021, https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2021/01/27/chinas-hypersonic-weapons/.
4. John T. Watts, Christian Trotti, Mark J. Massa, “Primer on Hypersonic Weapons in the Indo-Pacific Region, Atlantic Council, August 2020, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Hypersonics-Weapons-Primer-Report.pdf.
5. Richard H. Speier, George Nacouzi, Carrie A. Lee and Richard M. Moore, “Hypersonic Missile Nonproliferation,” (RAND Cooperation Report, RADN, 2018), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2137.html.
6. Stephen Bryen, "What about China’s hypersonic missile?” Centre for Security Policy, October 2021. https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/what-about-chinas-hypersonic-missile/
7. Imogen Braddick, “China fires hypersonic nuke ‘right round the Earth’ as terrifying display of advanced weapons 'leaves U.S. reeling", October 2021, The U.S. Sun. https://www.the-sun.com/news/3872929/china-fires-nuke-capable-hypersonic-missile-space/
8. China's Shock Hypersonic Missile Test Alarms U.S. Lawmakers: 'National Security Crisis. https://www.newsweek.com/china-shock-hypersonic-nuke-test-alarms-us-lawmakers-national-security-crisis-1647879
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(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of CESCUBE.)
