CRISISBOOM

globalsecuritynewswire

New advanced satellites could enable China to direct its ballistic missiles in striking U.S. naval vessels sailing in the region in the event of an outbreak of hostilities, Reuters reported on Monday (see GSN, Jan. 10).

(Jul. 13) - A U.S. guided missile destroyer fires an artillery round during an exercise last month in the South China Sea. China could train its ballistic missiles on nearby U.S. warships using a new generation of reconnaissance satellites, a report warns (U.S. Navy photo).

A soon-to-be-released analysis in the British Journal of Strategic Studies concludes that the fast pace of work on cutting-edge spy orbiters would give China the ability to monitor up-to-the-minute U.S. military movements and to steer its ballistic missiles in strikes on U.S. warships.

“The most immediate and strategically disquieting application (of reconnaissance satellites) is a targeting and tracking capability in support of the antiship ballistic missile, which could hit U.S. carrier groups,” according to the report.

“But China’s growing capability in space is not designed to support any single weapon; instead it is being developed as a dynamic system, applicable to other long-range platforms,” the analysis continues. “With space as the backbone, China will be able to expand the range of its ability to apply force while preserving its policy of not establishing foreign military bases.”

China remains aggravated by U.S. military support for Taiwan, which has an autonomous government but remains viewed in Beijing as Chinese territory.

Beijing routinely insists it does not have plans to place weapons in space. China has defended its markedly enhanced military spending as necessary for its own protection and to replace outmoded equipment.

“China’s constellation of satellites is transitioning from the limited ability to collect general strategic information, into a new era in which it will be able to support tactical operations as they happen,” says the expert analysis, viewed by Reuters.

“China may already be able to match the United States’ ability to image a known, stationary target and will likely surpass it in the flurry of launches planned for the next two years,” it adds.

In 2007, China successfully used a missile to dislodge one of its aging orbiting satellites and in 2010 the nation saw significant gains in the development of arms capable of eliminating missiles in mid-flight (see GSN, March 10; Ben Blanchard, Reuters, July 11).