The China Horn’s new nuclear weapons: Daniel 7

China’s new weapons

The People’s Republic of China, also known as China to the rest of the world, is a communist nation in East Asia. According to the Center for Strategic & International Studies in 2020, it had a population of more than 1.4 billion people and has become one of the world’s largest economies and tenth largest exporter. China was able to develop many weapons useful for warfare, and some of them are the hypersonic glide vehicle, the anti-satellite missiles and nuclear weapons.

Hypersonic glide vehicles are vehicles like airplanes, spacecraft and missiles that can travel four times faster than the speed of sound. From the Arms Control Association, tests of the hypersonic glide vehicles were conducted last summer and raised concerns from the U.S. about China’s advancements in military weapons. According to Financial Times, the Chinese military launched a rocket that was used to propel a hypersonic glide vehicle around the globe.

Anti-Satellite missiles are space weapons that involve missiles capable of destroying satellites for strategic motives. Based on the Secure World Foundation, China launched a missile on January 11, 2007, at Xichang Space Launch Center. This missile collided with a Chinese weather satellite, destroying the satellite.

The aftermath of this incident left an abundance of debris, which, as reported by BBC, led to the U.S. being the first country to ban such missile tests. Explosive devices that need nuclear energy are known as nuclear weapons. China has an estimate of 350 nuclear warheads, according to the Arms Control Association.

In addition, China wants to increase the number of missiles that are capable of delivering conventional and nuclear warheads, expanding their ability to engage in nuclear warfare.

China’s military inventory is gradually increasing in size as time passes. The newly developed hypersonic glide vehicle, the anti-satellite missiles, and other explosive devices for nuclear warheads can obviously be used for a wider range of warfare strategies. 

With more knowledge of their military weapons, other countries can understand and develop weapons that can counter Chinese weapons if they become more militarily aggressive.