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.”
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.
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.
Continued: Martin Marietta technology essential to Chinese rocket systems
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.
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.
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.”
