The Chinese military has begun to deploy the new DF-26 tactical ballistic missiles in its eastern and western theater zones, “posing a threat not only to US naval bases in Japan, but also to bring India into its range,” said the Global Times, citing the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.
The DF-26, which began its development around 2003, was enabled both nuclear and conventional since 2014. It made its public debut at a military parade in 2015 and entered service in mass production that year. The biggest feature of the DF-26 is its ability to hit moving targets as well as quiet ones.
DF-26 is believed to be China’s most advanced medium-range ballistic missile, with a maximum range of 5000 kilometers, the distance from mainland China to Guam, the South China Sea, South Asia and other places, so the missile is called “Guam Express” by the Chinese military fans.
However, due to recent tensions along the India-China border, the DF-26 is believed to have been deployed against India. According to a recent report by the Federation of American Scientists, satellite images confirm that the PLA has deployed several DF-26 launchers at its training site in Shandong province. This is the first time the missile has been spotted operating in the area.
In addition, Pinkov, editor-in-chief of Canada’s Hanwa Defense Review, said that China’s Rocket Force has also deployed DF-26 in the Korla region of Xinjiang. And previously, the DF-26 had been deployed to at least four other locations in China.
Song Zhongping, a military commentator, said the Chinese military’s purpose in deploying the missile was to “drive US aircraft carriers as far away as possible”. He mentioned that in August last year, China’s Rocket Force test-fired a DF-26 missile from Qinghai Province and hit a moving ship near the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea.
Since the border frictions last year, India has continuously increased its troops to the Sino-India border. Even after the heavy snowfall, it has kept more than 100,000 troops stationed in the Ladakh area and formed a confrontation with the Chinese Army. At the same time, the Indian Navy has been clamoring for the ability to cut off China’s routes in the Indian Ocean and thus threaten China’s economic development.
It’s believed in China that as for the so-called “Indian Ocean Dilemma”, China does not necessarily have to confront India at sea, but can jump out of the “Navy vs Navy” framework and “directly counterbalance the Indian Ocean” from the Karakorum Mountains, so as to “control the sea from the land”, and the weapon to achieve this is thought to be the DF-26 missile.
It’s believed that there are no technical difficulties for the Chinese military to deploy ballistic missiles on the Tibetan plateau. The DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile is land-based and can be easily deployed to any land position, including the Karakoram and Himalayan regions along the China-India border.
If launched from a depth of about 300 kilometers from the western border of China and India, it can basically cover the waters of the northern Indian Ocean, including Diego Garcia, the only US military base in the Indian Ocean, and cover the whole territory of the Indian mainland.
According to Chinese military analyst “Military Black Technology”, the distance from Beijing to Bangalore as the bird flies is about 4,860 km, within the DF-26’s maximum range of 5,000 km. In other words, even if the Chinese military does not have a single soldier in the Indian Ocean, its DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile alone can effectively wipe out the entire Indian naval fleet.
Furthermore, China’s Beidou navigation system has achieved accurate global navigation and positioning. With the Beidou and DF-26 systems, the PLA has no technical difficulties in tracking, locking and attacking Indian ships in the Indian Ocean.
With the deployment of DF-26 missiles to the Tibetan Plateau, more than half of the Indian Ocean, including the entire Indian mainland, is already within striking range of China’s missiles.