The first and foremost question in this regard ought to not to be about China as such, but rather what is a hypersonic nuclear missile. So what is it that we are talking about? While the time to gather definitions and work out the size of this possible malady is done and dusted, truth is, the hypersonic nuclear missile is bloody ballistic. How so?
Believe it or not, but the hypersonic nuclear missile, believed to have already been tested by China, is more dangerous than the normal missile that comes with a prefix called ‘nuke.’ How’s that?
The hypersonic nuclear missile can attack faster than the speed of sound for starters.
Ready to believe it? Well, it doesn’t matter what we believe for the aforementioned is the truth. To anyone who was happy living under the rock not because by doing so the attack, if made at all, from a hypersonic nuclear missile would’ve been averted needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
For if tomorrow China, that’s supposedly tested the said missile, will launch it, then there won’t be much time at all to smell it- right?
But let’s cut through the new age mumbo jumbo and word mongering. Why has this happened in the first place? Why was there ever a day where news reports from around the world had to carry what clearly seems one of the most awfulest pieces of news of all time- that a China-tested hypersonic nuclear missile was actually found to be orbiting around the earth perceptibly aiming for a target.
And if all of that’s true, unless the world news media reports are simply kidding with us, who is it that China is targeting and why?
In an age where weaponry, destructivity- not productivity- and the trundling around warlords has found space on your hand-held device, making way to the Netflix screen space, it’s fair to assume that we aren’t living in a peaceful era, one where diplomacy could help forge broken friendships and assuage inflated egos.
The warlines have been chalked out and the battle lines clearly drawn. Everyone and not from now, but since a while in the recent past, has been talking about nukes and how some countries’ vicious agenda against another aggressor involves impassionedly nukes.
Not that the crime fiction writers have anything less interesting to build stories upon than what they had in the days of the great war or even the Cold war; since forget not, we are already in that age where the talks around biochemical weapons have accentuated toward a clear involvement of this dominant discourse of our times.
But still someone like a China having ‘reportedly’ tested a hypersonic nuclear missile indeed is, ominous news and if it’s something that does raise eyebrows, then it’s hardly a surprise.
Also Read: List of World’s Nuclear Arsenal
That being told, the following is what NDTV had to say in its coverage of a truly acerbic event:
The report, citing multiple sources familiar with the test, said Beijing in August launched a nuclear-capable missile that circled the Earth at low orbit before descending toward its target, which three sources said it missed by over 20 miles (32 kilometers).
FT sources said the hypersonic glide vehicle was carried by a Long March rocket, launches of which it usually announces, though the August test was kept under wraps.
The report added that China’s progress on hypersonic weapons “caught US intelligence by surprise.”
Along with China, the United States, Russia and at least five other countries are working on hypersonic technology.
The above told, while China clearly shall not display its cards, it’s all too clear that something nasty ‘could’ be in the works, which while not be hinting towards doomsday, is still bound to shock and stun in equal measure.