China's State Media Issues Ominous Warning to US Over Pacific Missile Plan

Taiwanese navy soldiers standby in front of a US-made Standard I missile on a frigate on Penghu islands on August 30, 2022. The U.S. will deploy intermediate-range missiles at a location in Asia to counter China’s military aggression.

China’s state media this week lashed out at the United States over plans to deploy longer-range missiles to the Pacific, a move to deter the Chinese leadership’s designs on Taiwan and other claimed territories in the region.

The Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid published by the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda arm, at once downplayed and reacted furiously at the recent announcement by Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of the U.S. Army’s forces in the Pacific, calling it a “big provocation” in a headline on Monday before referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Something akin to the Cold War’s arms race is brewing in the Indo-Pacific region, where American defense planners have identified China as the nation’s long-term security threat—a “pacing challenge,” in the Pentagon’s words. Beijing also has been developing weaponry to counter new U.S. advances.

At the annual Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, which ran from November 17-19, Flynn said the U.S. plans to place new land-based intermediate-range missiles—including the Tomahawk and the Standard Missile-6, capable of reaching 1,500 miles and 150 miles, respectively—in the region.

“We have tested them and we have a battery or two of them today,” Flynn said, according to the Defense One news website. “In [20]24. We intend to deploy that system in your region. I’m not going to say where and when. But I will just say that we will deploy them.”

The Global Times newspaper, citing Chinese military commentator Song Zhongping, said the U.S. missiles would be “easier to intercept” and were, therefore, not a major threat. The decision would have a “limited tactical impact,” the paper concluded.

The deployment of longer-range missiles was previously forbidden under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987. The U.S. government, under former President Donald Trump, withdrew from the agreement in 2019.

“However, the move is a big provocation politically, as it means the U.S. has completely abandoned the treaty and is deploying missiles at China’s doorstep,” Song told the party paper.

“Analysts warned of the danger of such a provocation and possible escalation of confrontation, citing a precedent in 1962—the Cuban Missile Crisis,” said the Global Times. “The missile the U.S. plans to deploy in the Asia-Pacific is not as powerful as those in Cuba, but despite the difference in the severity of provocations, the two matters are similar in nature.”

The crisis, in which the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles off the southern United States in response to similar deployments in Southern Europe, lasted two weeks. It is considered the closest the two superpowers ever came to nuclear war.

Observers argue that China today is more competent and technologically capable than the Soviet Union was at its height. President Xi Jinping has set himself apart from past leaders in Beijing by expanding and modernizing the Chinese military to assert coercive or actual control over the country’s various territorial claims, chiefly Taiwan.

The democratically ruled island off the Chinese coast has never been under the Communist Party’s rule, but Beijing has vowed to unify it with the mainland, if necessary by force, despite Taipei’s repeated rejection of a future political union.

According to Defense One, Xi “is essentially assessing the military proficiency of his force to actually conduct a cross-strait invasion,” Flynn said.

“That is a highly, highly complex operation, not to be taken lightly. It’s going to require all of their forces and it’s going to require a significant amount of expertise, precision, timing, sustainment—and I could go on and on,” said the U.S. general.

The U.S.’s missile plan also will have other commitments in mind. In the immediate vicinity, long-time treaty allies Japan and South Korea both face an increasingly less risk-averse Kim Jong Un, who continues to develop North Korea’s ballistic missile program.

Japan is developing its own long-range strike capabilities and has acquired 400 Tomahawk missiles to fill the gap. Tokyo is expecting the first batch of deliveries in 2025.

Song, the commentator, told the Global Times that new U.S. capabilities in the region could be turned against Beijing’s People’s Liberation Army in the event of a conflict. But he also predicted some public resistance to Washington’s plans in the Pacific.

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