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China may sell Pakistan hypersonic weapon to counter Indian S-400: Expert

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Abdus-Sattar Ghazali
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China could allow Pakistan access to hypersonic weapons to counter the Russian S-400 air defense system acquired by India, says Richard D. Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Alexandria, Virginia.

"It is very likely that, to the degree that China has aided North Korea's new hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) missile warhead, it has or will similarly assist a Pakistani HGV, or simply sell the DF-17," he told Defense News, referring to a medium-range missile system equipped with an HGV. "Or Beijing now has the option of allowing North Korea to sell its HGV to Pakistan."

China could also help Pakistan redress the balance with a similar air defense system, Fisher added, and its ability to do so "can be expected soon."

Fisher noted that Pakistan's recently acquired Chinese-made HQ-9B missile which reportedly has a 240-kilometer range and is locally referred to as the HQ-9/P is based on Almaz-Antey technology. He said this transfer of advanced Russian technology enabled China to develop the initial land-based HQ-9 and ship-based HHQ-9 systems, which have a range of 125 kilometers and entered service in the mid-2000s.

These Chinese systems are quite advanced, Fisher added. "Like later variants of the S-300 family acquired by China, the HQ-9 featured a hard-to-jam phased array guidance and tracking radar, and its missile uses an active radar for terminal guidance."

Hypersonic weapons

Since mid-October 2021, hypersonic weapons have occupied considerable space in global headlines, Justin Paul George wrote last month in The Week. On October 16, the Financial Times reported that China had tested a new hypersonic missile that circled the globe before hitting its target.

In 2019, China displayed a hypersonic glide vehicle designated the DF-17 at a military parade, leading experts to believe the weapon was in service with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), George recalled. The DF-17 is mounted atop a ballistic missile. According to US intelligence estimates, the DF-17 has a range of around 2,500km and moves at between five and 10 times the speed of sound. US experts have postulated that the DF-17 could be equipped with either conventional or nuclear warheads. They have also expressed concern China could develop a variant of the DF-17 meant to target aircraft carriers at sea, according to George.

Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former commander of U.S. Strategic Command General John Hyten in an interview with CBS in November, warned China's progress in hypersonic weapons meant Beijing could have the capability to launch a nuclear first strike on the US. In the same interview, Hyten claimed that in "the last five years, China has carried out hundreds of hypersonic tests, while the U.S. has conducted just nine". Russia too has been testing hypersonic weapons, notably the Zircon, a ship- and submarine-launched hypersonic cruise missile.

Pravin Sawhney India should be worried about China's

Pravin Sawhney, a former Indian Army officer and founder-editor of Force magazine, Sawhney told the Week" "We [India] have nothing (hypersonic weapons) and we will not have anything for the next 10 years at least" And 10 years is a very optimistic window." Sawhney referred to the difficulties the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) has faced in developing the Nirbhay, a subsonic cruise missile.

Recently, Russian officials claimed they saw India as a prospective customer for the new S-500 surface-to-air missile system that they touted could shoot down hypersonic missiles and satellites.

However, Sawhney noted no country has countermeasures against hypersonic weapons currently.

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Author and journalist. Author of Islamic Pakistan: Illusions & Reality; Islam in the Post-Cold War Era; Islam & Modernism; Islam & Muslims in the Post-9/11 America. American Muslims in Politics. Islam in the 21st Century: (more...)
 

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