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South China Morning Post

China flexes military muscles with rare, large-scale missile test in Gobi Desert

In a quiet demonstration of its technological prowess, China's People's Liberation Army ( PLA ) has conducted a missile defence test in the Gobi Desert where as many as 16 ballistic missiles were fired on a single target to test a cutting-edge radar system's ability to thwart saturation attacks. Advertisement The unprecedented scale of the test – rare even among global military powers – signals Beijing's growing confidence in its capacity to counter advanced threats and project dominance in an increasingly tense geopolitical landscape. According to a paper published on February 18 by Zhang Zhenbiao, a senior engineer with the PLA's 63623 Unit in Jiuquan, Gansu province, all missiles were successfully detected and tracked by a new dual-band (S/X) phased array radar system, before hitting the target with 100 per cent success. The system achieved what the Chinese military scientists described as 'early detection, precision measurement and accurate reporting' – critical metrics for neutralising advanced threats like hypersonic glide vehicles or missiles armed with decoys and multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). The test, detailed in Flight Control & Detection, a Chinese-language journal, marks the first public disclosure of China's land-based early warning radar capabilities. Advertisement Its dual-band technology – similar to the US Navy's USNS Howard O. Lorenzen missile-tracking ship – combines wide-area surveillance (S-band) with high-resolution targeting (X-band). While the Lorenzen is hailed for its unmatched capability, with the potential to track more than 1,000 targets simultaneously, the United States has never publicly demonstrated its performance under live-fire conditions.