China’s hypersonic missile test is close to ‘Sputnik moment’, US military chief says

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark ­Milley says the Pentagon is focused on the ‘very concerning’ development.

US Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley. Picture: AFP

The top US military official described China’s recent test of a hypersonic missile as a near “Sputnik moment” and said that the Pentagon was focused on the development.

“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system, and it is very concerning,” chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark ­Milley told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT). “I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention.”

“Sputnik moment” refers to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik, which shook the US’s view of its own technological superiority and national security.

General Milley didn’t provide new details of the August test, in which a Chinese hypersonic missile orbited the globe before heading toward its target. But his comments were a rare instance in which a senior US official discussed the test on the record.

“There is a potential for weapons to be launched into space, then go through this old concept from the Cold War called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System … which is a system that basically goes into orbit and then de-orbits to a target,” Mr Kendall said.

The test was first reported earlier this month by the Financial Times, which noted that the missile had missed its target by more than 20 miles. US officials confirmed that the target had been missed.

US officials and weapons experts outside the government have speculated that the missile program is intended by the Chinese to circumvent US missile defenses with a nuclear-armed system.

Though US missile defenses aren’t currently capable of stopping a substantial Chinese nuclear attack, Beijing might be concerned that the US’s antimissile capabilities might be expanded, the officials and experts said.

Some US officials say, however, that the new missile might be intended to deliver non-nuclear attacks on US ports or installations in the Pacific.

Robert Soofer, who served as the senior Defence Department official for nuclear and missile-defence policy during the Trump administration, said the hypersonic missile isn’t the most threatening Chinese system.

“The expansion of the Chinese ICBM silos pose more of a threat,” he said in an interview. “This is part of an effort to achieve military parity across the board.”

China has about 350 nuclear warheads, one-third of which are on long-range missiles, according to the Arms Control Association, a private group that supports arms-control accords. US officials have projected that Beijing’s small arsenal could at least double over the next decade.

The current number of Chinese warheads is a fraction of the 1373 long-range nuclear weapons that the US has deployed. The US has a total of 3750 warheads of all types in its stockpile.

Russia has 1362 deployed long-range nuclear warheads. It has as many as 4500 nuclear weapons of all types, the Arms Control Association said.

During the Trump administration, the State Department proposed nuclear talks with the Chinese on ways to avert an arms race and maintain stability. They were intended to encourage Beijing to participate in negotiations limiting long-range nuclear arms, which China has refused to do.

The Chinese didn’t take the US up on that offer, which also could have provided the two sides with an opportunity to discuss nuclear doctrine and new weapons systems. A State Department spokesman said that the US was still interested a dialogue.

The Wall Street Journal