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Launch of a "Long March" rocket in northwest China (archive photo from October 16, 2021)
Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS
China continues to weigh down - but the US military is certain: the country's weapons test in August was a hypersonic missile.
This was confirmed by the US Department of Defense.
It was the "very significant event of the test of a hypersonic weapon system," said the chief of staff of the US armed forces, Mark Milley, on Wednesday on Bloomberg TV.
The test is "very worrying".
Milley drew a comparison with the so-called Sputnik shock of 1957 - the first completely surprising flight of a Soviet Sputnik satellite through earth orbit for the West.
It was the first time ever that such a flight of an artificial earth satellite succeeded.
The result was an accelerated race between the US and the Soviet Union in space and armaments.
Although he does not know whether the test of the Chinese hypersonic missile is completely equivalent to a "Sputnik moment", the test comes "very close" to it.
It is a "very significant technological event" that the United States followed with "full attention".
In the past few days, the US government and army had not yet confirmed the test of the Chinese hypersonic missile of the "Long March" type.
The US permanent representative for disarmament issues in Geneva, Robert Wood, was only in general "very concerned" about Beijing's technical advances in the area of hypersonic missiles at the beginning of last week.
The Financial Times had previously reported on the rocket being tested with this technology.
China speaks of "space technology"
The British newspaper reported that during the test, the nuclear weapon-grade sliding body circled the earth in a low orbit at five times the speed of sound, but missed its target by 30 to 40 kilometers.
Beijing denied the report.
It was a routine test for "reusable space technology," said Foreign Office spokesman Zhao Lijian on Monday last week.
China had already presented a hypersonic medium-range missile, the DF-17, in 2019.
This has a range of around 2000 kilometers.
According to the Financial Times, the test last August was a different model with a greater range.
The US disarmament commissioner Wood said on Monday last week that since Russia also has hypersonic technology, the US now has no choice but to react accordingly.
However, the United States is already working on expanding its arsenal to include hypersonic missiles and has already tested this missile technology.
North Korea is also developing the technology
In addition to the USA, China and Russia, North Korea and at least four other countries are also working on hypersonic rocket technology.
Like ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles can carry nuclear weapons.
While ballistic missiles fly in a high arc through space, hypersonic missiles remain in low orbit.
They are also remotely controlled, which makes shooting them much more difficult.
jok / AFP