Global power play
Re: "China and fulcrum of peace, security", (Opinion, Sept 12).
A week ago, on Sept 23, China reportedly fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from a mobile vehicle on Hainan Island after a 44-year lapse. The US, having been informed by China before the test launch, reacted cautiously and rather quietly. Neither has the Western media used it as a headline against China as they usually do. The implication, however, is crucial to the balance of global military power.
ICBM is one of the three ways of launching nuclear bombs, the other two being via submarine or airplane that the US used against Japan in World War II.
This timely ICBM test probably aims to ensure a strategic deterrence against the West. The Dong Feng 35A travelled close to the sky over Lusong Island in the Philippines, sending a clear message to the US plans to deploy medium-range missiles on the Philippine Island of Luzon and to Israel who threatened China on Sept 19 by bombing areas close to China's UN peacekeeping camp in Lebanon.
All five permanent members of the UN Security Council have recently test-launched their ICBMs with mixed results. Last November, the US failed to test launch its Minuteman III ICBM. In February this year, the UK failed to launch a US-made Trident missile from a Royal Navy submarine for the second time in a row. Russia's Salmach missile also failed its test on Sept 21.
With China's military power beginning to override the US, the latter will find it more difficult and dangerous to provoke China by stirring up more issues around Taiwan and the South China Sea.
The world will be able to breathe some fresh air when the US and its Nato allies realise that they have to rebuild their ageing nuclear deterrent weapons. But what they have to do first is to mend their fragile economy before they can fund their militaries. After all, as Bill Clinton says, it's the economy, stupid!
