The Financial Times, citing multiple sources, reported this weekend that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that orbited the planet before racing …
The Financial Times, citing multiple sources, reported this weekend that China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that orbited the planet before racing back down toward its target at more than five times the speed of sound. Beijing refuted the report on Monday, saying that it had conducted a routine test of a space vehicle. The Financial Times, citing five people familiar with the Chinese test, said Saturday that US intelligence was surprised by the capabilities demonstrated during the missile test, which sources said indicated that China is making far greater progress in developing hypersonic weapons than previously known. But on Monday, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian argued that what China tested was reusable spacecraft technology, not a missile. The two very different explanations provided for the testing are not necessarily mutually exclusive, an expert told Insider. « It gets down to one of the issues with any kind of missile technology — that a lot of it has a dual-use function, » Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Insider. « We’ve seen this with Iran. We saw this with North Korea when they were developing ICBMs. They test things that can kind of look a little like some kind of peaceful space technology, but in reality, there is a military purpose behind it, » he said.
