How Beijing’s hypersonic ‘carrier killers’ could distract US forces in a Taiwan conflict

The advancement and diversification of Beijing’s anti-ship missile platforms have bolstered its denial capabilities in the first island chain and could divert US and allied navies from warfare in a Taiwan Strait contingency, according to analysts. Last week, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV released a video of a Type 052D destroyer firing a YJ-20 hypersonic anti-ship missile from its vertical launch system, showcasing the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s increased ability to target surface combatants. The YJ-20 is one of China’s first sea-based hypersonic anti-ship missiles to have entered mass production, highlighting Beijing’s advances in its naval defence amid a military modernisation drive to narrow gaps with the US. The hypersonic missile is one of several anti-ship missile varieties that the PLA unveiled during a large-scale military parade in Beijing in September last year. It illustrated the Chinese navy’s strategic focus on establishing robust anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) against adversaries across its coastal waters and the first island chain. The first island chain is a series of islands and archipelagos in East Asia, running from Japan to Borneo. It includes Taiwan, which Beijing views as part of China to be reunited by force, if necessary. Most countries, including the United States and its allies, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons. According to James Holmes, professor of strategy and holder of the J.C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the US Naval War College, Beijing is producing its anti-ship missiles to hold the US Pacific Fleet at a distance, giving the PLA time to “settle matters in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea or wherever the contingency might be”. “If the PLA can keep US-based joint forces from uniting with the Seventh Fleet and other forces forward-deployed to the western Pacific, it can skew the military balance in its favour,” said Holmes, a former US Navy surface warfare officer. “Even if the PLA remains inferior to the US military on a ship-for-ship, weapon-for-weapon basis, as I believe it does, you can prevail if you manage to concentrate the bulk of your combat power against a fraction of the enemy’s.” Liselotte Odgaard, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, said China appeared to be pursuing a layered anti-access/area denial strategy designed to complicate US and allied naval operations across the western Pacific. “Equipping both surface ships and submarines with anti-ship missiles creates multiple attack vectors, increases redundancy and makes Chinese maritime strike capabilities more survivable in wartime,” Odgaard added. “It also allows the PLA Navy to engage enemy forces at different ranges and in different operational environments. The approach reflects a broader Chinese emphasis on sea denial, distributed lethality and preventing adversaries from operating freely inside the first island chain.” Last September’s parade also saw the unveiling of the YJ-19, another Chinese hypersonic anti-ship missile. It uses an air-breathing scramjet engine to travel at a speed exceeding Mach 5 and could be launched from submarine torpedo tubes. In February, the PLA Navy revealed that it had accepted the YJ-19 for service aboard its Type 039B diesel-electric submarine, making it the only non-nuclear submarine in the world with such a weapon. According to Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, China in recent years has made “huge strides” in developing various platforms to launch anti-ship missiles. Koh called the development of the hypersonic variants of those systems “most shocking”. “They are trying to achieve what we call overwhelming superiority going forward. [It] isn’t just to match the US symmetrically, but also to give … a certain asymmetry advantage over your adversary.” The US has yet to put hypersonic anti-ship missiles on its submarines. The Chinese hypersonic anti-ship missiles are often referred to as “carrier killers”, as the combination of extreme speed and mid-flight manoeuvring to bypass traditional ship defences delivers kinetic and explosive force sufficient to sink or disable aircraft carriers. The submarine-launched capability of the YJ-19 heightens the threat it poses to US warships. By blending the underwater stealth of the submarine with hypersonic speed, the weapon reduces defensive reaction times to seconds. While US submarine capabilities remain “very strong”, China’s submarine-launched anti-ship missiles are one of “several threats” to surface ships, according to Bradley Martin, a senior policy researcher at the Rand Corporation. “China has a wide variety of systems that can threaten US surface ships across a wide area. Submarines are certainly one such capability,” said Martin, a former US Navy surface warfare captain. “The US does have robust anti-submarine warfare capability, however, that any Chinese submarine would have to face to reach a target.” Odgaard said submarine-launched anti-ship missiles combined stealth with long-range strike capability, making them “particularly challenging” to counter. “Aircraft carriers remain extremely powerful, but their survivability increasingly depends on detecting and neutralising threats before launch,” she added. “Chinese submarine-launched anti-ship missiles could force carrier strike groups to operate farther from contested areas or devote additional resources to anti-submarine warfare.” “A stealthy submarine armed with long-range missiles can exploit gaps in maritime surveillance and theatre high-value targets,” Odgaard continued. “Even a limited risk of successful attacks could affect US operational planning because carriers concentrate substantial combat power in a relatively small number of vessels.” Koh said that coupling anti-ship missiles like the YJ-19 with submarines would be “where the danger is going to be greater” and that would require US and allied navies to “keep pace” with anti-air warfare in defending their surface combatants. He described the “psychological barriers” created by the deployment of hypersonic missiles on the submarines as pushing the US and allied navies to spend “disproportionately more effort and time in trying to hunt them down”. “If you have much of your fleet tied down trying to search for these elusive submarines with hypersonic missiles, then essentially you are taking the fleet away from other tasks,” Koh added. “That could mean the fulfilment of other, more important operational tasks in the Taiwan theatre and elsewhere.” If the US Navy were devoting so many resources across the Pacific Ocean “trying to hunt down these submarines”, Koh said, “then essentially … the first island chain is very much conceded to the Chinese”.

How Beijing’s hypersonic ‘carrier killers’ could distract US forces in a Taiwan conflict

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Beijing said to be producing anti-ship missiles to hold US Pacific Fleet at distance so PLA can settle matters wherever contingency might be

Beijing said to be producing anti-ship missiles to hold US Pacific Fleet at distance so PLA can settle matters wherever contingency might be