China Upgrades H-6 Bombers to Carry Intermediate-Range Cruise Missiles
September 29, 2006 :: Jane's Information Group :: News
China is believed to have upgraded its H-6 “Badger” medium bombers to carry intermediate-range, anti-ship cruise missiles, reports the November 1 issue of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets. The H-6 “Badger” is a Chinese copy of the Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-16. The upgraded versions, designated H-6K and H-6M, are believed to now have the ability to carry four large cruise missiles beneath their wings. The bombers could carry the extended-range YJ-83 (CSSC-8 “Saccade”), an air-launched version of the YJ-62/C-602 anti-ship cruise missile. In addition, the Chinese press has published photographs of the prototype H-6 carrying unknown missiles resembling the Soviet-designed AS-15 Kent” (Kh-55) intermediate-range, land attack cruise missile, according to Jane’s. In recent years, the Chinese press has stressed the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities against large surface ships, including U.S. aircraft carriers. (Link)
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China Offers YJ-62/C-602 Anti-Ship Cruise Missile for Export
September 27, 2006 :: Jane's Information Group :: News
China is offering its YJ-62 anti-ship cruise missile on the international market under the export designation C-602, reports the October 4 issue of Jane’s Defence Weekly. The new missile was displayed from September 20 to 24 at the African Aerospace and Defence exhibition at Ysterplaat Air Base in Cape Town, South Africa. It marked the first time that the C-602 has been formally shown abroad and offered for sale, according to officials from the China National Precision Machinery Import & Export Corporation (CPMIEC). The YJ-62/C-602 is a short-range, sea-skimming, anti-ship missile that can be launched from land or sea. Each missile carries a 300 kg armor-piercing high-explosive warhead. A standard coastal battery consists of four launch vehicles, each holding three missiles, plus command and support vehicles. When deployed at sea, the YJ-62/C-602 launchers are typically positioned in pairs. To date the system has been fitted to Type 052C (Lanzhou-class) destroyers of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, although CPMIEC notes that the YJ-62/C-602 can also be carried by frigate-sized escort vessels. (Link)
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China Fired High-Powered Lasers at U.S. Satellites
September 22, 2006 :: Defense News :: News
Defense News reports that China has fired high-powered, ground-based lasers at U.S. reconnaissance satellites in an attempt to blind the spacecraft and keep them from taking pictures of Chinese territory. The article quotes Pentagon officials who refused to state how many times the lasers have been tested against U.S. satellites, but confirmed that several firings have taken place over the past few years. According to one source, China has the ability to “blind” satellites passing over its territory but not “disable” them, given the massive amount of energy required to shoot a laser through the dense lower atmosphere and reach a fast-moving satellite. In any event, China’s burgeoning anti-satellite capabilities underscore the severe vulnerabilities of U.S. reconnaissance satellites, and indeed the entire U.S. space network. “The Chinese are very strategically minded and are extremely active in this arena,” said one senior former Pentagon official. “They really believe all the stuff written in the 1980s about the high frontier and are looking at symmetrical and asymmetrical means to offset American dominance in space.” The Pentagon, however, has kept largely quiet regarding China’s anti-satellite efforts, in line with the Bush administration’s policy of maintaining cordial relations with Beijing, which is a leading trade partner and seen as key to dealing with rogue threats such as North Korea and Iran. (Article, Link)
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Taiwan to Deploy Home-Grown Missile Shield
September 13, 2006 :: AFP :: News
Taiwan will introduce a new home-grown missile defense shield next year, reports the AFP. The article quotes Taiwan’s Apple Daily newspaper, which states that the shield, known as the Anti-Tactical Ballistic Missile (ATBM), is “expected to effectively counter the threat of China’s M-9 [CSS-6/DF-15] and M-11 [CSS-7/DF-11] ballistic missiles.” The system is believed to have evolved from Taiwan’s existing Tien Kung (Sky Bow) surface-to-air missile, and will eventually comprise 12 ATBM missiles batteries and an uncertain number of U.S.-made Patriot missiles and early warning radars. (Article, Link)
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» Missile details: CSS-6, CSS-7
China and Russia Discuss Joint Mission to Mars
August 23, 2006 :: AFP :: News
China and Russia are planning a joint mission to Mars. The Xinhua news agency quotes Ye Peijian, a scientist at the Chinese Research Institute of Space Technology, who announced yesterday that Russia plans to launch the spacecraft in 2009, which will carry Chinese-made equipment. The goal is to land on Mars and its nearest moon, and collect samples.
In June, Sun Laiyan, administrator of the China National Space Administration, said that China would focus on the moon and Mars in its deep space exploration program over the next five years. China has previously said it hopes to launch a lunar exploration satellite in 2007 as part of a program that aims to place an unmanned vehicle on the moon by 2010. In 2003, it successfully launched astronaut Yang Liwei into orbit, becoming the third country after the Soviet Union and the U.S. to put a man in space. (Article, Link)
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China: Hezbollah Missile Link “Impossible”
August 23, 2006 :: AFP :: News
Chinese regulations make it “impossible” for a missile China sold to Iran to be passed on to Lebanon’s Hezbollah forces, a senior Chinese diplomat claimed yesterday. Sun Bigan, China’s special envoy to the Middle East, told reporters that China has never exported arms to Hezbollah, including the radar guided C-802 (CSS-N-8) anti-ship cruise missile that Hezbollah fired at an Israeli warship on July 14. “I think the information or the news is not accurate about the use of Chinese weapons in the Lebanon-Israel battlefield,” Sun said. “I have taken note of these reports. The information itself is groundless.” Sun, however, did not rule out the possibility that these weapons may have been transferred to Hezbollah by a third party. “China does have some normal arms trade with some countries, however, the arms trade is with sovereign states. China does not provide weapons to any organizations, groups, or [political] parties.” He added that if Chinese weapons had in fact been transferred to another entity, China would be “very concerned,” but as far as he knew Beijing had not launched an investigation into the matter. (Article, Link)
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Chinese Long-Range Missile Force Trains for Combat Survivability
August 15, 2006 :: Jane's Information Group :: News
China’s long-range missile force is training for survivability in the face of enemy attacks, writes David C. Isby in the September 1 issue of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets. He quotes a recent article in the Chinese press, which details how the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 2nd Artillery Corps is practicing the repair and self-reconstitution of its missile forces. In one recent training exercise, a missile brigade hastily constructed a temporary launch pad after its prepared launch pad was destroyed by enemy attack. According to the article, the new survivability tactics are tailored specifically to U.S. offensive capabilities. The tactics are also designed to eliminate predictable patterns and trends that may have emerged among the 2nd Artillery Corps. (Link)
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Senators Press China on Iran and North Korea
August 12, 2006 :: Reuters :: News
U.S. senators visiting China have confronted Beijing about its ties with North Korea and Iran, reports Reuters. At a news briefing yesterday, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) said that the senators raised claims that a missile China had sold to Iran was possibly passed onto Hezbollah forces in Lebanon which fired it at an Israeli ship. According to Specter, Chinese officials did not confirm that the missile was Chinese yet also did they deny the claim. “The reply came from one of the representatives that sales were made to a sovereign country and it was under an arrangement, as I said before, that there would not be a resale or a transfer,” he said. Specter added that the senators had also expressed Washington’s belief that China needed to do more to press North Korea to return to the negotiating table. (Article, Link)
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Report: North Korea and Iran Collaborating on Missiles, Using Chinese Technology
August 4, 2006 :: Reuters :: News
North Korea has been working closely with Iran to develop its long-range ballistic missiles, using Chinese technology, according to a recent report by a state-run South Korean think tank. The report was produced by the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, and authored by Yun Deok-min. The collaboration is part of an international network, including Pakistan, that has made it possible for the impoverished North Korea to develop and deploy missiles despite scarce resources and limited testing. Pyongyang is believed to have built two underground missile bases in a mountainside in the central part of its land border with China. The bases “are located in positions that make them impossible to be attacked unless strikes come across the Chinese border, as they are positioned near the Sino-North Korea border and are in the mountainside,” the report said. The report also asserted that North Korea has been constructing new underground missile bases and silos along its east coast to deploy intermediate-range missiles aimed at Japan and U.S. military facilities.
During a Senate hearing last week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton noted that, “There is, no doubt, a very extensive Chinese cooperation with the Iranian ballistic missile program.” (Article, Link)
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» Missile details: Tien Ma 1
Richardson on Cruise Missile Proliferation
August 4, 2006 :: Canberra Times :: Analysis
“How did the [Chinese] C-802 [CSS-N-8] anti-ship cruise missile—rated by experts as among the most lethal in the world—get into Hezbollah’s hands?” asks Michael Richardson, a research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore in today’s edition of The Canberra Times. He goes on to discuss the “extensive but little-known trade in increasingly sophisticated missiles that have the capacity to upset stability and the balance of power in conflict-prone areas of the world.” The supply trail runs from China to Iran and then into Lebanon either by sea or over land via Syria. Iran and Syria are Hezbollah’s allies against Israel and the U.S. China has used Israel as a military supplier in the past, but has political and energy interests in Iran and Syria that are now in conflict with those of Israel. The tale of the C-802, Richardson writes, “is a classic story about the dog-eat-dog nature of the global arms trade and the destabilising impact of weapons that are not effectively controlled by national regulation or international treaties and agreements.” At present, there is no ban on the proliferation of anti-ship cruise missiles such as the C-802. Richardson lays out a plausible and frightening scenario based on the disclosure early last year by officials of Ukraine’s recently installed democratic government of the illegal export of 20 Russian-made Kh-55SM cruise missiles, each with a range of 3,000 km:
The Kh-55 family of missiles is Russia’s main nuclear-armed cruise missile launched from the air by strategic bombers. The missiles, exported in 2000 and 2001, were diverted from Soviet stocks left behind after Ukraine declared independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The illicit sale took place despite the fact that Ukraine was an regime member. Twelve of the Kh-55SMs reportedly went to Iran, six to China and two to Pakistan. Iran is alleged to have paid nearly $US50million ($A65.5million) for its missiles.
None of the Kh-55SMs from Ukraine had their 200 kiloton nuclear warheads. But the deal included the system for testing, programming and launching the missiles which had been in service for a number of years. China and Pakistan, both declared nuclear powers, evidently wanted to strip the missiles to copy and incorporate its design, propulsion and guidance components into their own efforts to develop long-range cruise missiles—a process known as reverse engineering.
Iran, too, may have similar interests in using some of the Kh-55SMs as a shortcut for developing a derivative long-range cruise missile—one capable of striking Israel from some 1500 km away. But having a dozen of the missiles could also enable Iran to fit the weapon to its Soviet built Su-24 strike aircraft or fire it from ships or land-based truck launchers.
Robertson concludes: “The ultimate nightmare for Israel and the U.S. would be a Kh-55SM-type missile, armed with an Iranian nuclear warhead.” (Article, Link)
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