“In 2020, China fired anti-ship ballistic missiles against a moving target in the South China Sea.”
China tested these weapons thoroughly, the Pentagon report adds:
“In 2021, the PLARF launched approximately 135 ballistic missiles for testing and training, more than the rest of the world combined excluding ballistic missile employment in conflict zones. The DF-17 passed several tests successfully and is deployed operationally.
“While the DF-17 is primarily a conventional platform, it may be equipped with nuclear warheads. In 2020, a PRC-based military expert described the primary purpose of the DF-17 as striking foreign military bases and fleets in the Western Pacific.”
Key to the effectiveness of anti-ship missiles is satellite intelligence and electronic warfare measures. As the Pentagon reports:
“China employs a robust space-based ISR [intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance] capability designed to enhance its worldwide situational awareness. Used for military and civilian remote sensing and mapping, terrestrial and maritime surveillance, and intelligence collection, China’s ISR satellites are capable of providing electro-optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery as well as electronic and signals intelligence data.”
Most important:
“As of the end of 2021, China’s ISR satellite fleet contained more than 260 systems – a quantity second only to the United States, and nearly doubling China’s in-orbit systems since 2018.”
Satellite signals can be jammed or spoofed (misdirected to show incorrect coordinates), but
“The PLA continues to invest in improving its capabilities in space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), satellite communication, and satellite navigation … the PRC continues to develop a variety of counter-space capabilities designed to limit or prevent an adversary’s use of space-based assets during crisis or conflict.
“In addition to the development of directed energy weapons and satellite jammers, the PLA has an operational ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites, and the PRC probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit.
“PLA [electronic warfare] units routinely train to conduct jamming and anti-jamming operations against multiple communication and radar systems and Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite systems during force-on-force exercises.
“These exercises test operational units’ understanding of EW weapons, equipment, and procedures and they also enable operators to improve confidence in their ability to operate effectively in a complex electromagnetic environment.”
China’s military has improved quality as well as quantity, according to the Pentagon:
“Recent improvements to China’s space-based ISR capabilities emphasize the development, procurement, and use of increasingly capable satellites with digital camera technology as well as space-based radar for all-weather, 24-hour coverage.
“These improvements increase China’s monitoring capabilities – including observation of US aircraft carriers, expeditionary strike groups, and deployed air wings. Space capabilities will enhance potential PLA military operations farther from the Chinese coast.”
Overall, the Pentagon’s readout on China’s missile and satellite capability is virtually identical to the estimation of Chinese analysts, for example, the widely read military columnist Chen Feng in the prominent Chinese website “The Observer” (guancha.cn). In a November 27 report, Chen explained why an array of small satellites can achieve precise real-time target location:
“Small satellites are not only small, lightweight, and low-cost, but also operate in low orbits. In terms of space ISR, one is worth nearly three. This is true for optical and radar imaging, as well as for signal interception. So the actual reconnaissance capability of small satellites is no weaker than large satellites, and commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar small satellites in the United States and China are able to reach 0.5-meter resolution.
“Optical imaging has always had the advantage of high resolution, which is also a very mature technology. In the era of digital imaging, there is no longer a need to use the re-entry capsule to send the film back to the ground when the satellite is overhead.”
Synthetic aperture radar, Chen explains, “is not applicable to moving targets, but most of the intelligence can be interpreted from still images, and the similarities and movement can be inferred from differences between the before and after still images can also be inferred from the movement.”
A lead satellite may detect a suspicious object, and follow-up satellites “can be switched to a detailed investigation mode, and relay the results of detailed investigation.” Other satellites with electromagnetic rather than optical sensors can conduct real-time triangulation.
In addition to its satellite ISR capability, Chen says, the other half of China’s reconnaissance capability consists of “unmanned aircraft, unmanned boats, submarines, and networked land-based radar, and undersea hydroacoustic monitoring.”
China, Chen concludes, does not yet have global ISR capability, “but theater coverage has been achieved.”
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