Posted on 07/02/2011 6:14:27 AM PDT by ex-Texan
China’s "carrier killer," the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile that can destroy American ships, had a unique origin: its base technology was pilfered from U.S. military trash during the 1990s, according to recent revelations by a Chinese military analyst.
Further, a key part of the rocket system for that missile was obtained from U.S. engineering firm Martin Marietta, also in the 1990s.
Richard Fisher, who has kept close tabs on the transfer of military technology to China, says that a “U.S. source” recently told him what he had suspected all along: that from the tons of military scrap China bought from the U.S. a decade and a half ago, intelligence was gathered to develop the radar guidance system that is now being used in the Dongfeng-21C, which enabled the People’s Liberation Army to develop its DF-21D medium-range ballistic missile for destroying American aircraft carriers.
“Due to China's guile and America's gullibility, China is in 2011 able to threaten the Asian balance of power with a new unique weapon for which the U.S. has no defense,” Fisher said in an email. “A US carrier has a crew that numbers up to 6,000. That's nearly twice the number of Americans who died at Pearl Harbor.”
Due to China's guile and America's gullibility, China is in 2011 able to threaten the Asian balance of power with a new unique weapon for which the U.S. has no defense.
— Richard Fisher, analyst of the Chinese military
Fisher was put on the trail in late 1996 at the Zhuhai Airshow. He began questioning the engineer at a display for GPS guidance systems, gleaning that GPS was being applied to the short range ballistic missile under development at the time, and that the medium range ballistic missile—the DF-21 series—was using radar technology for the guidance system. Diamonds in the Trash
One month later a 6,000 word article appeared in U.S. News and World Report describing in painful detail how a Pentagon program for selling U.S. military refuse had spun out of control. Incorrect coding on sensitive items and lack of oversight meant that 20 billion dollars worth of equipment was being moved from military bases each year, an unmitigated disaster that persisted despite repeated complaints from insiders.
When China got a whiff of this they got in quick, and for 15 years agents on the bottom rung of a Chinese espionage network systematically bought up this refuse.
One Chinese buyer in Georgia referred to a military surplus depot as “the candy store.” The military base, he wrote in a note to his boss, “will fill our needs into the next century.”
After a 16-month investigation, $157 million in equipment was found illegally shipped to Asian countries, including China, but that was only a portion. In cracking open one of the seized containers destined for Hong Kong (a common waypoint before the mainland), investigators found “fully operational encryption devices, submarine propulsion parts, radar systems, electron tubes for Patriot guided missiles, even F-117A Stealth fighter parts. Many of these parts, sold as ‘surplus,’ were brand new,” US News reported.
No evidence, like a shopping list from Beijing, was uncovered to incriminate the Chinese agents on the ground in the United States. “I think the reason for that … is that they don't need to communicate directly,” a customs agent told US News. “These people have been doing this for 15 years. They know exactly what their country wants.”
These vast quantities of sensitive military equipment were shipped back to China for intelligence processing. Missile Components
Five years earlier the U.S. had begun dismantling its Pershing-II medium-range ballistic missile, as part of the 1987 US-Soviet Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement.
ANALYST: Richard Fisher speaks to a film crew in Congress on June 16, revealing that a U.S. source confirmed that the Chinese 'carrier killer' anti-ship ballistic missile was developed with U.S. technology. (Matthew Robertson/The Epoch Times) ANALYST: Richard Fisher speaks to a film crew in Congress on June 16, revealing that a U.S. source confirmed that the Chinese 'carrier killer' anti-ship ballistic missile was developed with U.S. technology. (Matthew Robertson/The Epoch Times) Discarded parts from this missile then got into the military garbage supply.
In 1997 Fisher suspected that “China's garbage espionage may have contributed to their being able to develop a terminally guided ballistic missile.”
And Fisher’s source recently confirmed to him this was the case. The Epoch Times could not obtain any further information about the source, nor interview him/her directly.
However, the timeline that Fisher presented matched up with that found in a document on a Chinese military website. A long, highly detailed technical article described research on the guidance system for the missile being completed in 1996, as well as the development of a radar system.
The piece explains its candidness by saying: “Although military projects must be highly secret, we also need to disclose some information through various channels in order to shake and frighten our enemy and uplift the spirits of our own comrades.”
Absent of identifying publication information, experts on the Chinese military contacted by The Epoch Times who looked at the document had no comment on its likely provenance.
Mark Stokes, Executive Director at Project 2949, a think-tank focused on Asian security, did not know enough about the allegations to directly endorse Fisher’s analysis, but conceded that “it's possible that some data or scrap from Pershing-2 made it to the Chinese in the 1990s.”
Further to that, “The Chinese did appear to use at least publicly available info on Pershing's guidance, navigation, and control system as a model for the DF-21C,” he said.
It was the DC-21C that used the radar guidance system, with significant technology upgrades, from the Pershing II. But that could only reach land targets.
Our next step is to establish our strategic military offense navy, so we can spread the dragon’s flag across over the West Pacific. — Document on a Chinese military website
The DF-21D, the anti-ship ballistic missile that now targets U.S. aircraft carriers, is a “pretty big leap” beyond the 21C, Stokes says.
Fisher speculates that the technology was adapted from the 21C, with indigenous upgrades, and that it probably now uses multiple radar and optical guidance systems.
Chinese military documents also show detailed technical analyses and diagrams of the Pershing-II. Rocket Help
But it wasn’t only the guidance system that allowed Chinese military engineers to approach the Holy Grail of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) military strategy—the ability to target U.S. aircraft carriers. The engine to power the rocket was also built with the help of U.S. technology.
Early tests with the DF-21 in the 1990s were consistently experiencing engine failures, as Chinese engineers could not determine the proper insulation for the engine to prevent the rocket fuel from burning holes in the missile wall.
At the same time there was a cooperative program to launch U.S. satellites from Chinese space launch vehicles, and U.S. companies were assisting the Chinese with a solid fuel “kick motor”—a small solid-fueled booster attached to the satellite to push it into orbit.
Fisher says that a former engineer with the 4th Academy of the China Aerospace Corporation, the center of China's solid fuel rocket engine development and production, explained that Martin Marietta helped with this in 1991-1992.
“In the course of fitting the engine to the Chinese space launch vehicle, Martin Marietta engineers or officials disclosed details that helped the Chinese to perfect solid rocket motor insulation,” Fisher said.
As the Chinese engineer explained to Fisher, “after this contribution the DF-21 and all following PLA solid fuel missiles worked just fine.” Balance of Power
The DF-21D is now a new weapon that in 2011 may have reached “Initial Operating Capacity,” meaning that it may be available for use against U.S. carriers. While it has been tested on land, it has not yet been reported to have been tested on the high seas.
For years American naval officers had “dismissed this capability as beyond the grasp of the PLA,” according to a research article by Larry Wortzel, a current commissioner on the U.S.-China Commission who has had a long career in the armed forces and U.S. government.
The reality that U.S. aircraft carriers are vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes—unthinkable years ago—required a strategic rethinking by the U.S. Navy.
The Chinese have not proven the ability to destroy maneuvering ships, and the U.S. has a series of countermeasures meant to dull its effectiveness, according to Andrew Erickson, an Associate Professor at the U.S. Naval War College, in an email.
But the missile is “concerning,” in the words of Admiral Robert F. Willard, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, both to the United States and other countries in the region.
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* Chinese ‘Carrier Killer’ Based on US Technology
Wallace "Chip" Gregson, assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, described the situation more starkly in a speech in December, saying the Chinese military buildup—including the DF-21D—could “upend the regional security balance.”
The next step for the Chinese regime’s expanding military? The article on the Chinese military website located by The Epoch Times concludes that, having developed the carrier killer, “Our next step is to establish our strategic military offense navy, so we can spread the dragon’s flag across over the West Pacific.”
Gee, the threat of a hypothetical missile and you want to scuttle our major tactical asset the CVN. How dumb are we?
Screw that. One shot at USN ship - we take out the Three Gorges Dam. The Chinese that survive the flood can starve.
Actually, my Army Major son in law who is MI...says the Israelis’ have stolen this type of classified information....and sold to the Chinese and has been doing this for years. What trusted ally would do this?
They did, indeed, get it from the trash.
It was the trailer trash infesting the white house that gave it to them.
Actually, their nature could change from CVN to drone carriers.
But you still need a floating airfield to recover them, service and rearm said drones.
I agree there will always be a need but in view of the advances of technology all across the board its just a huge big human populated target.
17 Fleet carriers from the US Navy, Royal Navy, and Imperial Japanese Navy were sunk in combat during World War II.
The US Navy should ALWAYS assume that a potential enemy has a “carrier killer”. If it floats, it can sink.
Lest we forget, who was in charge of the hen-house in the 90s?
What Barack Obama is to the Islamic Fundamentalists, Bill Clinton was to the Chinese.
We’ll be finding out how both of these two men f-—ed this nation for decades.
Ok, so the ChiComs DONT target fixed AF bases? Or do the zipper heads ONLY track Navy assets? Tell me, every piece of armor is a sitting duck ya know. Heck a guy with a $1,000 shoulder fired missile can knock out a $1,000,000 M-1 Abrams. So where does it stop? Illogical conclusion made by armchair Admirals are so foolish.
How many CVNs are there? 11?
In a war with China, if those CVNs posed a threat to China's war objectives (the same was true of the USSR), don't you imagine that they would be destroyed by low-yield nukes as the first move?
Do you really imagine a US President would trade LA for Beijing in response to a purely military strike on a purely military target set?
If they can be found, they can be sunk - and that has nothing to do with hypothetical missiles.
Looks like daddy Bush was utilizing his ties in China to help them with missile tech too.
How stupid can can our leaders be?
That’s right. We’re financing the whole damned thing. Makes me so angry I could spit nails.
Why can't the drone itself be a missile-carrying missile? One-way trips only with a big bang at the end of the journey.
Floating yes, but not necessarily all the time. We “should” have the technological skills to build submersible carriers.
Not for full sized aircraft but ROVs.
We have to have some flying jock straps around, right? Gotta have that macho air superiority image, right?
Problem is that image is just not enough for future wars. Or a possible alternative threat should it happen. Like an attack from outside the planet. We just would not have enough human pilots. Period.
If you look closer into it. some of those 17 ships were abandoned and floated around for days sometimes, then a fleet sub would come by and finish them off so the enemy COULD NOT TOW AND REFUBISH THEM. It is incredibly hard to actually sink an CV.
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Do you sit when you pee? The ChiComs can get us to abandon our CVN's without firing a shot. GOOD THING YOU ARE NO WHERE NEAR the levers of power.
Before any anti-ship missile can be fired, it has to be pointed in the general direction of the target. China is sorely lacking in the general ocean surveillance category. A carrier may be a big ship, but it is a far bigger ocean.
I am not for a minute going to suggest that the Chinese have not gotten a lot of help from the fact that tehcnology "secrets" are hard to keep in the US, but folks have to pay attention to the fact a shift in the strategic balance between ourselves and China was inevitable, and entirely at the will of the Chinese, not us. They have a billion people and have always been an ordered population with a high regard for education.
And take it from an old salt. The days of the CVN have been numbered for decades. They are useful for projection of power in regional skirmishes where taking a shot at a carrier would be regarded as escalation. In a "total war" any carrier within enemy range is at risk and has been for decades.
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