The United States and China are engaged in a hypersonic “arms race,” the head of the Air Force said.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall described the race as one about “increased quality” instead of “increased numbers” in a Tuesday interview with Reuters.
“It’s an arms race that has been going on for quite some time,” he added. “The Chinese have been at it very aggressively.”
MAJORITY BELIEVE CHINA IS US’S BIGGEST THREAT, WHILE CONFIDENCE IN MILITARY HAS PLUMMETED: POLL
The Chinese military has accelerated the pace of its nuclear expansion program to the point where it could “have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads” within roughly five years, according to the Department of Defense’s Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China report, released at the beginning of November.
Additionally, the military “likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020,” it added.
Over the summer, China tested a missile that “went around the world, dropped off a hypersonic glide vehicle that glided all the way back to China, that impacted a target,” said Gen. John Hyten, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the days before his retirement last month, he acknowledged that the Chinese military has conducted “hundreds” of hypersonic tests in the last five years, while the U.S. conducted only nine such tests. Hyten also called the pace of China’s military development “stunning” and warned about the “bureaucracy we put in place,” which he called “brutal.”
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The hypersonic arms race with China comes at the same time as tensions over Taiwan — the island nation off the coast of China, which has claimed its independence despite China’s claims that the island is its own territory — are also heightened.
Two U.S. congressional delegations traveled to Taiwan last month, and each met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Last weekend, the Chinese military had more than two dozen aircraft enter Taiwanese airspace, according to the Defense Ministry. This is the latest occurrence of China’s provocative measures regarding Taiwanese airspace.
