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China's Air Force plans a major upgrade of its range of missiles in a bid to counter the deployment of sophisticated Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in South Korea. South Korea and the US took this decision to counter any missile strikes from North Korea. But, Beijing opposes the move vehemently as the powerful US radars have the ability to look deep into the Chinese territory and it also warns of possible threat to the stability in the Korean peninsula.
The upgrades to the ground-to-air forces in China would be a solid step toward increasing national security, the Air Force spokesman, Shen Jinke said.
"Through innovation, ground-to-air defence troops are able to deal with far-range, medium-range and short-range missiles which can come in on high, medium and low altitudes", official media in Beijing quoted him as saying.
"The capability of China's air defence and anti-missile systems has greatly improved in the information age we live in. Our ground-to-air forces are now a powerful force to safeguard China's airspace sovereignty," he said.
Earlier this month Chinese Aero space officials said China's next-generation cruise missiles will be developed based on a modular design, allowing them to be tailor-made for specific combat situations with high level of artificial intelligence.
"We plan to adopt a 'plug and play' approach in the development of new cruise missiles, which will enable our military commanders to tailor-make missiles in accordance with combat conditions and their specific requirements", Wang Changqing, director of the General Design Department of the Third Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp said.
"Moreover, our future cruise missiles will have a very high level of artificial intelligence and automation," he said.
"They will allow commanders to control them in a real-time manner, or to use a fire-and-forget mode, or even to add more tasks to in-flight missiles," he added.
China last year for the first time displayed its Dongfeng-21D missile, the anti-ship ballistic missile described as the carrier killer, which caused concern among US defence officials as it could blow up aircraft carriers from a distance of about 1500 km to 1700 kms.
Dongfeng-21D along with long and short range missiles were displayed at the country's biggest military parade last year in Beijing held to mark 70th anniversary of victory against Japan in World War-II.
