China fires ‘aircraft-carrier killer’ missiles

On 23 August 2020, China launched first of the four advanced naval warships it is building for Pakistan at the Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai. The Type-054 class is equipped with surface, subsurface, anti-air weapons, combat management system and sensors, and regarded as “one of the technologically advanced surface platforms of the Pakistan Navy fleet”. The Pakistan Government had signed a contract with the China Shipbuilding Trading Company Ltd. (CSTC) for the first two Type-054 A/P frigates in 2017.

China has once again launched a volley of missiles into an area of the contested South China Sea. These included the so called ‘ aircraft- carrier killer’ DF- 21D and DF-26B which are considered as central to China’s strategy in deterring military action off its eastern coast, threatening to destroy the essential sinews of US power projection in the region. According to US Defence officials, these four medium-range ballistic missiles landed in the sea between China’s southern Hainan Island and the disputed Paracel chain near Vietnam.