China: PLA Navy show the YJ-21 hypersonic cruise missile
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The missile — dubbed the “YJ-21” or “Eagle Strike 21” — is capable of speeds in excess of 3,806mph and is believed to have a strike range of some 620 miles. The display of military power comes ahead of the Chinese navy’s 73rd anniversary, which is this weekend. In a video clip of the apparent launch, the YJ-21 is deployed from a Type 055 vessel, the largest class of guided-missile destroyer in the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) fleet.
The Type 055 destroyer, which first entered service in 2020, has a multi-mission design, being fitted with a variety of sensor and weapon hardware.
The latter is understood to include air-defence, anti-missile, anti-ship, anti-submarine and land-attack weapons, with the vessel harbouring a total of 112 vertical-launch missile cells, 64 in the forward section and 48 cells aft.
The behemoth — the product of some 50 years of military development — is also understood to have been designed with various stealth features.
These include a layout intended to reduce radar cross-section and a smoke stack engineered to reduce the vessel’s infrared signature.
Naval analyst Professor Jie Li of Beijing’s Naval Military Studies Research Institute told the South China Morning Post that the exhibition was intended to deter foreign — specifically US — vessels from intervening in the event the People’s Republic attacked Taiwan.
He added: “The ship-borne YJ-21 missile, which has a range up to 1,000 kilometres [621 miles], is able to hit any vessel in an aircraft carrier strike group.
“The matching of the Type-55 and YJ-21 missile was designed for anti-access and area-denial to counter America’s maritime hegemony in the region.”
The rocket demo comes after a four-strong US Navy carrier strike group conducted routine operations off of the Korean peninsula last week in tandem with Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force.
Prof Li’s assessment was seconded by Chenming Zhou, a researcher at the Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank in Beijing.
He added that the recent “unlimited US military assistance to Ukraine”, combined with an American congressional group tour to Taiwan had unsettled Chinese authorities.
He said: “Beijing is worrying [this] …might make Taipei believe Washington may provide the same help in the event of a conflict between the mainland and Taiwan.”
Another clip that has surfaced online this week appears to show a missile very similar in profile to the YJ-21 being transported by one of China’s H-6N bombers.
Dr Zhou added that, if launched from the air, the combat range of the YJ-21 may well be increased to a whopping 932 miles.
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The news comes after demonstrations of similar hypersonic weapons by both Russia and the US in recent weeks.
In late March, Russia announced that it had deployed hypersonic weapons outside of its own borders for the first time, deploying its so-called “Kinzhal” missiles against both a subterranean weapons facility and a fuel depot in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it had been operating a programme of hypersonic weapons testing in tandem with the US Air Force.
The latest test, undertaken back in March, saw the so-called Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) released from a B-52 bomber before travelling more than 345 miles at hypersonic speeds.
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