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.
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 |