CHINA EMPOWERS PAKISTAN WITH POWERFUL MISSILE TRACKING SYSTEM

NEW DELHI: China has sold Pakistan a powerful missile tracking system in an unprecedented deal that could speed up the Pakistani military's development of multi-warhead missiles, reported Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper on Thursday.

While no details were available on how much Pakistan paid for this missile tracking system, the report said the Pakistani military has already deployed the system “at a firing range”, for use in testing and developing its new missiles. A researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) revealed this to the newspaper, which cited a statement on the CAS website as the source for news of the deal.

"Zheng Mengwei, a researcher with the CAS Institute of Optics and Electronics in Chengdu, Sichuan province, confirmed to the South China Morning Post that Pakistan had bought a highly sophisticated, large-scale optical tracking and measurement system from China," wrote the newspaper.

News of this Chinese sale comes on a day India announced it successfully flighttested Brahmos, which is called the world's fastest supersonic cruise missile. It also comes two months after India tested its most advanced nuclear-ready intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Agni-v ICBM, and a little over a year after Pakistan conducted the first test launch of its nuclear-capable Ababeel ballistic missile.

The statement on the CAS website said China is the first country to export such sensitive equipment to Pakistan.

"It has been a long-held notion that Beijing is supporting Islamabad's missile development programme. But solid evidence can seldom be found in the public domain, making the CAS statement a rarity," said the Post article.

Not only is Beijing supporting missile development in Pakistan, it's also the recipient of "VIP treatment" from Pakistan for this support. The Post report said that the Chinese team that went to Pakistan to install the missile tracker was treated like royalty for the three months it was there. “The (missile tracking) system's performance surpassed the user's expectations,” said the CAS website statement, adding that it was "considerably more complex than Pakistan's homemade systems".