China wants America to know its aircrews are ready and able to fire anti-ship and, soon, ballistic missiles into U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.
On Thursday, a Chinese defense ministry spokesman stated, “Recently, the Southern Theater Naval Air Force organized the H-6G, H-6J, and other new fighters to carry out high-intensity training day and night in the relevant waters of the South China Sea and completed training subjects such as day and night take-offs and landings, long-range attacks, and attacks on sea targets.”
It’s clear that this exercise is designed to send a message to the United States. Consider the spokesman’s choice of words. The references to “high-intensity training” in the “South China Sea” with a focus on “long-range attacks and attacks on sea targets” can be translated to: wartime training in at-range strikes on the U.S. Navy’s carrier strike groups. The spokesman’s two separate references to “night” operations are also important. That’s because the People’s Liberation Army knows the U.S. military believes its aircrews lack competency and capability in night combat operations.
The detailed description of the aircraft involved further disabuses any doubt that U.S. aircraft carriers are on China’s mind.
The H-6G bomber is designed to carry anti-ship cruise missiles with a range of up to 200 kilometers. Similarly, the newer H-6J is designed to carry China’s more advanced YJ-12 anti-ship cruise missile. That missile has a range of 400 kilometers. Both these missile platforms aim to limit American defenses. They mean that a carrier strike group’s air wing would have to interdict the bombers before they launched their missiles or that the carrier group’s air defense cruiser/destroyers would have to engage the missiles after launch and when in range of their RIM-66 air defense systems.
While the air-to-air interdiction opportunity is something the U.S. Navy’s fighter squadrons train extensively for, China’s threat competencies are growing here. Announcements like this one should not be viewed as simple blustering rhetoric. Especially in the context of Xi Jinping’s growing consideration of his own leadership credibility and the South China Sea situation as being intrinsically matched together.
And China is preparing even greater threats. Beijing will soon employ an air-launched variant of its DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missile on its H-6K class of bombers. In war, the PLA could then launch saturation strikes of those missiles from both ground and air units. With a range of 3,000 kilometers, the threat these missiles pose to U.S. aircraft carriers is more significant than the U.S. Navy admits.
Where does this leave us?
Well, the strategic context to these exercises matters greatly. Tensions between Beijing and Washington over the South China Sea are growing rapidly, with each side conducting more regular and aggressive exercises. Also this week, for example, the U.S. military increased its intelligence collection on Chinese mainland forces, or possibly the Chinese H-6 exercises, with escalating reconnaissance flights just off the Chinese coast.
Put simply, conflict is a greater near-term possibility than is commonly assumed.
