China’s Missiles on Parade

Wendell Minnick of Defense News reported last week that China has for the first time publicly displayed the DF-31A, a road-mobile, nuclear ICBM, and the DH-10, a land-attack cruise missile, in a rehearsal for an October 1 parade marking the 60^th anniversary of the PRC’s founding. Military and defense officials in China will explain that this is part and parcel of an effort to improve military transparency. This may be true, and foreign observers-who have long complained about the PLA’s opacity-will be happy to get a good look at these weapons next month. The display, however, is not simply an act of openness. As Minnick pointed out, the PLA is also making a statement. With the DF-31A, China is publicly demonstrating that it has a second strike capability (and one capable of reaching Washington, DC); with the DH-10, the PLA reminds us that our forces on Okinawa remain vulnerable.

Neither of these facts is likely to surprise intelligence agencies and China watchers in the U.S. But they are important nonetheless because they (should) remind us of a couple things. First, nuclear weapons are not yet obsolete. President Obama has set a long-term goal of eliminating these weapons completely. This is, perhaps, a noble goal, but in the shorter term, the president must ensure that our nuclear posture is appropriately tailored to ever-changing threats, both from upstart nuclear states like North Korea and from established nuclear powers like China.

Second, this “statement” from the PLA should remind us that the United States and China are engaged in a simmering military competition. The DH-10 is just one of many weapons systems that are at least in part designed to counter U.S. military capabilities. Some systems, like China’s anti-satellite weapons or its forthcoming anti-ship ballistic missile, have been explicitly developed to neutralize American forces. These types of weapons upset the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific, making conflict more likely. One hopes that our leaders are taking the emerging military competition as seriously as China’s are. Should the military balance be allowed to lean in China’s favor, peace in Asia could soon be a thing of the past.

Michael Mazza is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute