TAIPEI, Taiwan — Guam is within China’s military strike reach with new missiles and bomber aircraft capabilities that demonstrate China’s continued efforts to neutralize America’s ability to come to the aid of its allies and friends in the region, according to a May 10 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC).
The report, “China’s Expanding Ability to Conduct Conventional Missile Strikes on Guam,” states that, though a US territory, neutralizing Guam makes perfect sense from a Chinese military perspective. The island is home to two U.S. military facilities — Apra Naval Base and Andersen Air Force Base — with 6,000 personnel. Guam supports rotations of B-1, B-2 and B-52 bomber aircraft, as well as F-15, F-16, and F-22 fighter aircraft. The storage facilities are ample with 66 million gallons of aviation fuel and 100,000 bombs.
In a contingency in which Beijing sought to disrupt a US intervention and was able to fire sufficient numbers of intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM), land-attack cruise missiles (LACM), anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), the bases and assets located on Guam would be held at risk, according to the report’s author, Jordan Wilson, USCC policy analyst on security and foreign affairs.
“Besides potentially depriving the United States of specific strike assets, such attacks could disrupt its region-wide response effort — closing runways, reducing aerial and naval basing capacity, complicating the operating environment for U.S. ships, and shutting down key logistics and repair infrastructure,” he wrote.
Wilson points to the new DF-26 IRBM paraded for the first time during the September 2015 military parade in Beijing. The missile is unique in that it has an ASBM capability, which allows it to strike aircraft carriers in the area around Guam.
The missile, dubbed the “Guam Killer” or “Guam Express,” has a range of 3,000–4,000 kilometers with nuclear, conventional and anti-ship variants. The missile features a new “modular design” that allows for interchangeability: The launch vehicle can be fitted with “two types of nuclear warhead and several types of conventional warhead which use different destructive mechanisms to attack specific targets,” Wilson wrote.
The other ASBM of concern is the DF-21D, dubbed the “carrier killer.” But its range is only 1,500 kilometers, which is too short a distance to threaten Guam. However, the DF-21D is armed with a maneuverable warhead, “providing China with the ability to hold at risk U.S. Navy aircraft carriers operating east of Taiwan from sites on the Chinese mainland,” he wrote.
The introduction of the DF-21D in 2010 forced U.S. naval ships to operate from greater distances in a Taiwan scenario, and now with the DF-26, Guam is no longer a safe haven for U.S. fighter and bomber aircraft.
