or China, the ability to prevent a U.S. carrier strike group from intervening
in the event of a Taiwan Strait crisis is critical. Beijing’s immediate strategic
concerns have been defi ned with a high level of clarity. The Chinese are inter-
ested in achieving an antiship ballistic missile (ASBM) capability because it of-
fers them the prospect of limiting the ability of other nations, particularly the
United States, to exert military infl uence on China’s maritime periphery, which
contains several disputed zones of core strategic importance to Beijing. ASBMs
are regarded as a means by which technologically limited developing countries
can overcome by asymmetric means their qualitative inferiority in conventional
combat platforms, because the gap between offense and defense is the greatest
here.
Today, China may be closer than ever to attaining this capability. In addition
to numerous outside reports suggesting Chinese efforts in this area, technical
and operationally focused discussions on the topic are
appearing in increasing numbers and in a widening
array of Chinese sources, some clearly authoritative.
This suggests that China may be close to testing and
fi elding an ASBM system—a weapon that no other
country currently possesses, since the United States
relinquished a distantly related capability in 1988. In
the view of Chinese and Western analysts, even the
mere perception that China might have realized an
ASBM capability could represent a paradigm shift,
Dr. Erickson is an associate professor at the China
Maritime Studies Institute, Strategic Research De-
partment, Naval War College. His coedited volume
on evolving maritime roles for Chinese aerospace
power will be published by Naval Institute Press. Mr.
Yang is an associate political scientist at the RAND
Corporation. He is currently completing his doctoral
dissertation in politics at Princeton University. Previ-
ously a visiting research fellow at Stanford University,
he began his career as an avionics software engineer
at Lockh