Missiles of China


Last Updated

The People’s Republic of China is in the process of building and deploying a sophisticated and modern missile arsenal, though one shrouded in secrecy due to intentional ambiguity and unwillingness to enter arms control or other transparency agreements. Beijing features its missiles most prominently in its developing anti-access/area denial doctrines, which use a combination of ballistic and cruise missiles launched from air, land and sea to target U.S. and U.S. allied military assets in the Asia-Pacific theater. China is also developing a number of advanced capabilities such as maneuverable anti-ship ballistic missiles, MIRVs, and hypersonic glide vehicles. The combination of these trends degrade the survivability of foundational elements of American power projection like the aircraft carrier and forward air bases. China also has a relatively small but developing contingent of nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of  striking the U.S. homeland, as well as a growing fleet of nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

China's Ballistic and Cruise Missiles
China's Regional Missile Threats

Missiles

Missile Name Class Range Status
DF-11 SRBM 280 - 300 km Operational
DF-12 / M20 SRBM 280 km Operational
DF-15 SRBM 600 km Operational
DF-16 SRBM 800 - 1,000 km Operational
DF-17 HGV 1,800 - 2,500 km Operational
DF-21 MRBM 2,150 km Operational
DF-26 IRBM 4,000 km Operational
DF-31 ICBM 7,000 - 11,700 km Operational
DF-4 IRBM/ICBM 4,500 - 5,500 km Operational
DF-41 ICBM 12,000 - 15,000 km Operational
DF-5 ICBM 13,000 km Operational
HN 2 Cruise Missile 1,400-1,800 km Operational
HN 3 Cruise Missile 3,000 km Operational
HN 1 Cruise Missile 50 - 650 km Operational
JL-2 SLBM 8,000 - 9,000 km Operational
YJ-18 Cruise Missile 220 - 540 km Operational