China has tested a hypersonic missile capable of nuclear weapons. The USA speaks of a “Sputnik shock” like in 1957.
Beijing – The US is in an uproar. Last August, the Pentagon confirmed a missile test in China. A so-called hypersonic missile is said to have been fired.
From Beijing, the bullet is said to have circled the globe before it missed its target by about 15 kilometers. The event sparked concern and amazement in America.
USA and China: missile test is reminiscent of Sputnik 1957
It wasn’t a rocket, but a spacecraft. China’s government spokesman Zhao Lijian attached great importance to this designation in an interview with the Financial Times . With this one-off statement in mid-October, the topic for the People’s Republic was officially ended.
The hypersonic missile
Hypersonic missiles, like ballistic missiles, can carry nuclear weapons. However, while ballistic missiles fly in a high arc on a clearly defined course through space, hypersonic missiles can orbit the earth at more than five times the speed of sound, about 6200 kilometers per hour, in a low orbit. They are also remote-controlled and therefore difficult to detect and intercept by defense systems.
The shock is deep in the United States. Media reports of a “Sputnik shock”, which is reminiscent of the year 1957, when the Soviet Union put an artificial satellite into orbit. It was then that all the warning bells went off in the United States. The most powerful country in the world suddenly felt technically – and thus also militarily – inferior. The result was a race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the fields of space travel and armaments.
Mark Milley, General and Chairman of the United Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Armed Forces of America, told BloombergTV that the new hypersonic missile test was “very close” to the Sputnik moment. In any case, the development of the Chinese weapon system is “extremely worrying” and will be followed with “full attention”. According to several media reports, US President Joe Biden is also concerned about developments in China.
Arms race with China? USA want to develop new technologies
Beijing continues to deny experimenting with hypersonic weapons. But the skeptical America itself has now entered the development competition. Milley announced that the US is now also “testing and developing new technologies,” allegedly a “whole range of hypersonic technologies, artificial intelligence and robotics.”
The Pentagon also recently spoke out. It said America had already conducted several tests that were part of the development of a US hypersonic weapon system. Aljazeera reported on this. However, America’s largest arms company Raytheon warns that it is “several years behind” compared to the technology tested by China. The USA now wants to close the development gap with its Asian neighbors.
China’s missile test: what was the real significance of the test?
America felt threatened by the test. However, experts see no danger in this: “The importance of this Chinese test is exaggerated. Because this is such an unusual technology, some observers were initially concerned and disturbed, ”says Joshua Pollack, the leading expert on nuclear weapons and atomic arms control in the United States. In his opinion, the Chinese missile is not built in any new technology, reports the Tagesschau . Rather, the flying object is comparable to a NASA space shuttle.
For Pollack, the missile test is just a lesson from China: “It seems a bit as if China’s leadership wants to show everyone that they are not helpless in the face of the overwhelming power of the USA. It wants to demonstrate that China is highly equipped and cannot simply be ignored or punished with contempt. “
According to Pollack, the current developments and weapon tests are not questionable. Nevertheless, the tensions between China and America are very worrying because: “The fundamental fact that both states are able to attack each other with nuclear weapons has not changed. Neither China nor the USA are in a position to deprive the other side of this ability to carry out a nuclear attack. “(Aa)
