China's Ministry of National Defense said Wednesday that the military successfully test-fired a new type of missile into waters near the Korean Peninsula - an announcement that comes amid Chinese anger over the deployment in South Korea of a sophisticated US missile defense system.
China's Defense Ministry announced Tuesday that the country's rocket force, which oversees its ballistic missile force, conducted live-fire drills and weapons tests "in recent days", according to a brief statement on its website. The ministry said last month that it would respond to the missile defense system's deployment by continuing to test new types of weapons under conditions simulating actual combat.
"Considering the type of missile and the test location it is evident that we conduced a firing experiment targeting aircraft carriers".
He also said: "The warhead possibly featured an electromagnetic pulse that could destroy a carrier's command system".
The ministry has not released any further information about the missile, state-run CGTN reported today.
India PM arrives in Sri Lanka for UN Buddhist celebration
The Prime Minister was referring to his small time association with tea when he used to work with his father as tea seller. This is seen as an apparent bid to gain influence in Sri Lanka that saw a 26-year-long armed insurgency.
"It hasn't much to do with THAAD directly, but it is a kind of warning" to South Korea and the U.S., Song Zhongping, a Chinese military affairs expert and commentator for Hong Kong's Phoenix TV, told the Associated Press. In order to de-escalate tensions surrounding the Korean peninsula, Beijing has come up with an initiative to call on North Korea to refrain from carrying out further missile and nuclear tests in exchange for the USA and South Korea suspending their military exercises in the region.
The THAAD system is created to intercept and destroy short and medium-range ballistic missiles during their final phase of flight.
This proposal is supported by Russian Federation, which has urged Washington and Seoul to reconsider their decision to station THAAD on the peninsula, saying it serves as a "destabilizing factor" that undermines the security and deterrent capacity of adjacent states, such as China, and could tip the existing military balance in the tense region.
China also said its troops carried out exercises close the North Korean border as US President Donald Trump stepped up pressure on the North Korean leader Kim-Jong-un to scale back the nuclear and missile programme. Its Dong Feng 31 (DF-31) is the longest with a range of 11,700 kms. It included Dongfeng-21D missile, the anti- ship ballistic missile described as the "carrier killer".
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