The People’s Liberation Army Daily website issued the following report on Sunday: “According to a written statement released by China’s Defense Ministry on Sunday, China conducted a land-based mid-course missile interception test within its territory on June 19, 2022 and achieved the desired test objective. The test is defensive in nature and not targeted against any country.” This terse statement generated a lot of headlines yesterday, but apparently no other details of the test are available.
Chinese military expert Song Zhongping told the Associated Press that China has conducted such tests in the past, but is seeking to make a point by announcing the latest one. “The reasons for China to make it public are because of military transparency and effective deterrence to some country,” Song said.
According to Global Times, the latest test brings the number of publicly announced Chinese land-based ABM technical tests to six. According to media reports and official statements, other known ABM tests were carried out by China in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2018, and 2021. It was not revealed in which interception phase the test in 2014 was carried out, while all other five were carried out in the mid-course phase. All of those Chinese tests ended successfully. This contrasts with the test record of the U.S. mid-course system, which, GT gloats, has a success rate of only 55 percent.
