{"id":66019,"date":"2021-07-26T14:30:09","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T04:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=66019"},"modified":"2021-07-26T14:16:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T04:16:59","slug":"china-threatens-australia-with-missile-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/china-threatens-australia-with-missile-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"China threatens Australia with missile attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In the face of an increasing torrent of abuse from Beijing, Canberra should seek a much clearer commitment from Washington that its United States ally will retaliate if China launches a missile attack against Australia.<\/p>\n

As far as Australia is concerned, the growing torrent of threats and bullying from Beijing mean that we need to have a much clearer understanding from our American ally about extended deterrence\u2014not just nuclear deterrence but also conventional deterrence against Chinese long-range theatre missiles with conventional warheads.<\/p>\n

In May, the editor-in-chief of Beijing\u2019s Global Times<\/em> newspaper, which generally reflects the views of the Chinese Communist Party, threatened Australia<\/a> with \u2018retaliatory punishment\u2019 with missile strikes \u2018on the military facilities and relevant key facilities on Australian soil\u2019 if we were to send Australian troops to coordinate with the US and wage war with China over Taiwan.<\/p>\n

The specific threat made by Hu Xijin was as follows: \u2018China has a strong production capability, including producing additional long-range missiles with conventional warheads that target military objectives in Australia when the situation becomes highly tense.\u2019<\/p>\n

The key phrase here is \u2018long-range missiles with conventional warheads\u2019. But it\u2019s virtually impossible, even with the most sophisticated intelligence methods, to detect reliably any difference between a missile with a conventional warhead and one with a nuclear warhead. This is made more difficult by the fact that China co-locates its conventional and nuclear theatre missile forces.<\/p>\n

But why the emphasis on \u2019conventional warheads\u2019? This may be Beijing trying to show that it still adheres to its \u2018no first use\u2019 declaratory policy on nuclear weapons. But it may also be aimed at restraining any US strikes on China in retaliation for a missile attack on Australia.<\/p>\n

However, Beijing is not only naive about how Washington might be prevailed upon to accept the difference between conventional and nuclear strikes. There\u2019s the additional problem that some of the \u2018relevant key facilities on Australian soil\u2019 would be important for the US\u2019s understanding of the nature of such a conflict and whether escalation could be controlled. For example, taking out the joint US\u2013Australian intelligence facilities at Pine Gap near Alice Springs might be seen in Washington as an attempt to blind the US to any warnings of deliberate nuclear escalation by Beijing.<\/p>\n

During the Cold War, this sort of danger was well understood. In my experience in the late 1970s and 1980s, Moscow made it clear to us that attacks on Pine Gap, Nurrungar and North West Cape would only occur in the context of an all-out nuclear war. The Soviet leaders knew that blinding Washington in the early stages of a nuclear exchange would be a foolish act, not helping any prospects of the management of escalation control.<\/p>\n

The problem with Beijing is that it has no experience in high-level nuclear arms negotiation with any other country. It doesn\u2019t understand the value of detailed discussions about nuclear warfighting. This is a dangerous gap in Chinese understanding about war\u2014especially as its strategic nuclear warheads, which number in the low 200s according to the Pentagon, are barely credible as a second-strike capability and its submarines armed with strategic nuclear weapons are noisy.<\/p>\n

However, US estimates suggest that China is planning to double its strategic nuclear forces and recent media reports claim that Beijing is building more than 100 new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles in the northwest of the country. If true, this is a strange development because ICBMs in fixed silos are becoming more vulnerable with the increased accuracy of nuclear strikes. China\u2019s recent ICBMs have been road-mobile for precisely this reason. The only rational explanation for new fixed-silo ICBMs is that they\u2019re designed for a new launch-on-warning posture, which suggests new developments in China\u2019s early warning capabilities.<\/p>\n

In addition to its strategic nuclear warheads, Beijing has about 2,000 theatre nuclear missiles capable of targeting much of the Indo-Pacific. The majority of them are nuclear-armed, but some of the optionally conventionally armed variants (such as the 4,000-kilometre-range DF-26) can reach the north of Australia.<\/p>\n

The main point here for Australia is that unless we acquire missiles with ranges in excess of 4,000 kilometres, we won\u2019t be able to retaliate against any attack on us. But, in any case, for a country of our size to consider attacking the territory of a large power like China isn\u2019t a credible option.<\/p>\n

So, resolving the threat posed by the Global Times<\/em> depends on Washington making it clear to Beijing that any missile attack on Australia, as America\u2019s closest ally in the Indo-Pacific region, would provoke an immediate response by the US on China itself.<\/p>\n

America has an overwhelming superiority in being able to deliver prompt global conventional precision strikes.<\/p>\n

Beijing also needs to understand that because of the density and geographical distribution of its population, it is the most vulnerable among continental-size countries to nuclear war. The virtual conurbation that extends from Beijing in the north via Shanghai to Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the south would make it particularly susceptible to massive destruction in an all-out nuclear war.<\/p>\n

The US has 1,500 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and another 5,000 stockpiled or \u2018retired\u2019. (Russia has a similar number of strategic nuclear warheads, totalling about 6,800.) America has more than enough nuclear warfighting capabilities to take on both China and Russia. In the Cold War, the Pentagon planned on destroying a quarter of the Soviet Union\u2019s population and half its industry. For comparison, a quarter of China\u2019s population is about 350 million. In such a nuclear war, China would no longer exist as a functioning modern society.<\/p>\n

It might be time we considered acquiring a missile system capable of defending us against ballistic missile attack. The first step could be to fit this capability to the air warfare destroyers, while noting that a nationwide capability would need to be much more extensive.<\/p>\n

But in the final analysis, we depend upon the United States\u2014as the only military superpower in the world\u2014to deter China from escalation dominance and its threatened use of ballistic missiles against us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the face of an increasing torrent of abuse from Beijing, Canberra should seek a much clearer commitment from Washington that its United States ally will retaliate if China launches a missile attack against Australia. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":66022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2047,52,1755,1998],"class_list":["post-66019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia-us-relations","tag-china","tag-deterrence","tag-icbm"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChina threatens Australia with missile attack | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/china-threatens-australia-with-missile-attack\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China threatens Australia with missile attack | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the face of an increasing torrent of abuse from Beijing, Canberra should seek a much clearer commitment from Washington that its United States ally will retaliate if China launches a missile attack against Australia. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/china-threatens-australia-with-missile-attack\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-26T04:30:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-26T04:16:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-486261618-e1627270988777.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"599\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Dibb\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Dibb\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/china-threatens-australia-with-missile-attack\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-486261618-e1627270988777.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-486261618-e1627270988777.jpg\",\"width\":900,\"height\":599,\"caption\":\"Military vehicles carrying DF-26 ballistic missiles participate in a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on September 3, 2015, to mark the 70th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II. 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