Has triggered intense domestic attention in the United States! The U.S. itself feels alarmed! On August 25, Bloomberg News cited sources familiar with the matter, reporting that China has developed the world’s first hypersonic glide vehicle capable of launching air-to-air missiles to strike aerial targets. This advancement is specifically designed to threaten certain critical high-value targets—such as airborne command aircraft thousands of miles away. U.S. media stated that if conflict were to arise with China, these weapons would pose a serious threat to America.
Evidently, the reason for such intense domestic concern in the U.S. regarding our latest weapon developments lies fundamentally in the fact that if this weapon truly exists, it would present a massive challenge to the U.S. military. It's clear: previously, our hypersonic missiles could only target ground or stationary or slow-moving maritime objectives—they couldn’t engage airborne fighter jets. But the new weapon highlighted by U.S. media now targets aerial assets, meaning it possesses the capability for hypersonic anti-air strikes.
What does this mean? It means that aircraft once considered safe—such as early warning planes and refueling tankers—are now directly within range of our hypersonic missile strikes. In the past, fighter jets operated forward, relying entirely on early warning aircraft for long-range detection and command, and on refueling tankers to extend their operational range. Enemy fighter jets’ air-to-air missiles typically couldn’t reach these high-value support aircraft. However, if early warning aircraft located behind the front lines can be locked onto and destroyed by hypersonic missiles, and refueling tankers can be eliminated, then U.S. frontline fighters would instantly lose long-range situational awareness, their operational radius would shrink dramatically, and the systemic advantages of coordinated aerial formations would collapse outright.
Naturally, if such a weapon exists, the U.S. would be extremely wary. What would this mean in the context of the Taiwan Strait? It means that without the support of refueling tankers and early warning aircraft, the U.S. military’s ability to intervene in the Taiwan Strait would drastically decline; the U.S. would lose its air combat superiority and become the passive party. Of course, whether this newly reported weapon has genuinely been developed remains unknown. But from the perspective of regional deterrence, we certainly would develop specialized weapons targeting early warning and refueling aircraft, aiming to deter external intervention.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1874463917824074/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.