Demonstration of China’s power for the United States by testing supersonic missiles.
In August, China tested a supersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, much to the surprise of the American intelligence community, a US newspaper quoted five informed sources as saying.
Following reports of supersonic missile tests by the United States, Russia, South Korea and North Korea in recent weeks, it is now said that the Beijing government conducted such a test a few months before them.
In August, the Financial Times reported that China had tested a supersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead in August, which orbited the Earth before accelerating toward its target, indicating advanced space capability. The American intelligence community was surprised.
“The Chinese military fired a rocket carrying an ultrasonic glider that passed through the Earth’s orbit before moving toward its target,” five people familiar with the experiment told the Financial Times.
The missile lost its target about 20 miles, according to three people familiar with the test. But two said the experiment showed that China had made amazing progress in the field of supersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials had imagined.
“This experiment raises new questions about why the United States typically underestimates China’s military modernization,” the Financial Times wrote.
“We have no idea how they did it,” a fourth source told the publication.
A nuclear-armed missile equipped with a nuclear warhead could help China build US missile defense systems designed to destroy new ballistic missiles, said Taylor Fravel, a Chinese nuclear policy expert who was unaware of the test.
Earlier, the Defense Ministry’s Advanced Military Research Projects Agency said it had successfully tested a supersonic missile that could reach five times the speed of sound after eight years.
