China is Testing DF-21 Anti-ship Ballistic Missile to Target US Aircraft Carriers
"China's rapid and comprehensive transformation of its armed forces is affecting regional military balances and holds implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region," said Adm. Robert F. Willard, the Pacific Command leader. "Of particular concern is that elements of China's military modernization appear designed to challenge our freedom of action in the region."
The comments in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee are likely to fuel an ongoing debate inside the U.S. government among military, policy and intelligence officials over whether China's military buildup is limited to a future conflict with Taiwan or whether China harbors global military ambitions.
Some U.S. officials insist China's buildup of both conventional and nuclear forces is aimed solely at a Taiwan conflict, in which U.S. forces likely would intervene in support of the island.
Other officials have said China is seeking global hegemony through a combination of military, economic, political and intelligence power projection that seeks to diminish U.S. influence around the world.
"The United States remains the pre-eminent power in the Asia-Pacific, though China's rising influence is changing regional power dynamics in ways that create both challenges and, I think, opportunities," Adm. Willard said.
He also disclosed for the first time in the testimony that China is moving ahead with a new anti-ship ballistic missile capable of attacking aircraft carriers hundreds of miles from China's coasts.
China also will deploy its own aircraft carrier by 2012 and currently has more than 60 submarines, he said.
China is "developing and testing a conventional anti-ship ballistic missile based on the DF-21/CSS-5 medium-range ballistic missile designed specifically to target aircraft carriers," Adm. Willard said in his prepared statement.
It was the first time a U.S. official had disclosed that the unique precision guided missile was being tested.
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