US debuts hypersonic missile in Australia. Is it a deterrent against China?

The Star

a day ago

The US appears to be strengthening its allied deterrence against China by deploying its Dark Eagle hypersonic missile, a move that could 'further intensify' regional rivalry, Chinese experts have warned.
The United States Army Pacific, a service component for America's Indo-Pacific Command, confirmed on the weekend that it had deployed a Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) system – commonly referred to as Dark Eagle – to Australia's Northern Territory as part of the three-week Talisman Sabre 2025 military exercise that wrapped up on Monday.
It was the first time that the weapon had been used overseas and beyond the continental US.
'The deployment of the LRHW system to Australia is a major milestone for the army and demonstrates our ability to rapidly deploy and operate advanced capabilities in support of our allies and partners,' Wade Germann, commander of the Hawaii-based 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force which transported the weapon to Australia, said on Sunday.
As a land-based, manoeuvrable missile system, Dark Eagle can travel at over 6,100km/h (3,800mph) and strike targets more than 2,700km (1,700 miles) away.
The US deployment of the weapon showed a 'flexing of military muscle', according to Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
He said the move indicated the importance that Washington attached to the US-Australia alliance, including its readiness to strengthen defence coordination and security cooperation with Canberra.
Xin expected that the deployment was unlikely to have a direct impact on China.
He said many US actions had targeted China in recent years, including the Aukus trilateral security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom.
'I'm afraid that is also the main intention of the US [this time] – to exert a certain deterrence against China, to demonstrate the unity and interoperability of its alliances, as well as the credibility of its stated security commitment to the region – to project this posture and attitude,' he said.
Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Centre at East China Normal University in Shanghai, said the US had been steadily cultivating and shaping Australia into a key military hub for American forces since the US began advancing its Indo-Pacific strategy.
With the LRHW deployment, the US was seeking to comprehensively and gradually improve Australia's long-range strike ability, he said.
He said he expected that Washington aimed to turn the South Pacific nation into a potential launch pad for future military action against China.
'Australia has not only already been a tool of the US Indo-Pacific strategy, but is increasingly becoming both a strategic and tactical weapon for Washington across multiple aspects,' Chen said.
The overseas deployment of the hypersonic missile system is another example of Washington ratcheting up its force projection in the Asia-Pacific region.
The US deployed a Typhon missile system – also known as the Mid-Range Capability (MRC) system – in the Philippines last year, with the weapon apparently remaining in the Southeast Asian country, drawing repeated criticism from Beijing.
Xin, from Fudan, expected that China would be vigilant about the US deployment of Dark Eagle, although he also said China's own development of hypersonic weapons had been rapid in recent years.
He said US military deployments in the Philippines and Japan, as well as Washington's policy statements on the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, targeted Beijing.
'I think China will certainly maintain a high level of alertness and attention to this,' Xin said. 'The military and security rivalry or competition between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific is likely to further intensify.'
Zhou Bo, a retired senior colonel in the People's Liberation Army, said the inclusion of Dark Eagle in the Talisman Sabre 2025 exercise carried symbolic weight, as the weapon could reach China's periphery.
If the missile, with a range of around 2,720km, were placed at Steep Point, mainland Australia's westernmost location, it could strike as far as the James Shoal in the South China Sea, said Zhou, who is also a senior fellow in the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University.
Still, he said, the weapon was unlikely to be the 'game changer' the US military had described, given that China's DF-17 hypersonic missile had a comparable range and the DF-27 could reach up to 8,000km – far surpassing that of the LRHW.
'In terms of weapons comparison, it's not a case of them having something we don't. What we have may even be better than theirs,' he said.
He also noted that the weapon's use in the Talisman Sabre 2025 exercise would not guarantee its future stationing in Australia, and that it was difficult to conclude whether Canberra would approve its use on Australian territory during wartime.
Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military aviation analyst and former member of the air force, also expected that deploying Dark Eagle in Australia was of little threat to China.
'Even if it were to pose a threat, we have corresponding countermeasures,' he said.
The latest Talisman Sabre drill, a biennial event involving more than 40,000 troops from the US, Australia and 17 other nations this year, started on July 13 while the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was in China.
In recent years, Australia has increased its military presence in the South China Sea, while China's surprise live-fire naval drills in international waters of the Tasman Sea earlier this year drew protests from Canberra.
Meanwhile, Canberra is also facing growing pressure from Washington on defence matters. The Pentagon has reportedly urged both Australia and Japan to clarify their positions in the event of a conflict with Beijing over Taiwan.
'What makes us alert and concerned is that there seems to be an increasingly evident rift or divergence between Canberra's diplomatic and military spheres,' Chen said.
He said the Albanese government's efforts to improve relations with China through diplomacy continued to be undermined – or sabotaged – by its defence and security sectors.
'If the Albanese government succumbs to pressure and political inducements from the US military and Australia's domestic China hawks, the hard-won progress in China-Australia bilateral relations could be damaged, or even lost entirely,' he said. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST