Chinese Forces Fielding Intercontinental Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles Capable of Reaching U.S. West Coast, Pentagon Says

Defense affairs - Def-Geopolitics

The Pentagon has claimed that Chinese missile forces are operating a new type of anti-ship ballistic missiles that are capable of reaching the West Coast of the United States, according to the annual report on Beijing’s military power. 

The People’s Liberation Army DF-27 can strike land and maritime targets between 5,000 to 8,000 kilometers away, according to the Defense Department report to Congress.

A graphic detailing fielded conventional strike capabilities of the PLA publicly confirmed the DF-27’s abilities for the first time. The map depicted the DF-27 covering the entire Indo-Pacific region and much of the West Coast.

China has deployed a first of its class anti-ship system that allows Beijing to hold vessels at threat at distances surpassing its current inventory of cruise, supersonic and hypersonic missiles, according to the Pentagon report.

While China has not revealed the system’s existence, The Washington Post covered the Pentagon’s assessment of the DF-27’s supposed anti-ship capabilities following Pentagon leaks in 2023. The Defense Department’s 2021 China military report to Congress also acknowledged its development, but did not claim that the missile could conduct maritime strike missions.

The DF-27 represents Beijing’s continued development of increasingly complex and capable area denial systems, a trajectory that China has invested in to deter and defeat the blue water naval forces of its adversaries. Within the last decade, the PLA Rocket Force has made headlines for its deployment of the so-called “carrier killer” DF-21D and “Guam killer” DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles. China has also deployed maneuvering hypersonics designed to target warships via the DF-17.

This year’s China military parade also showed off a plethora of air and naval-launched anti-ship systems.

These missiles allow Chinese forces to strike land and maritime targets across the first and second island chains, where the bulk of the United States’ Pacific forces and those of its allies are situated. In response, U.S. and allied forces have invested in more ballistic missile defense assets, including the construction of a dedicated air defense network for Guam.

The capability of the DF-27 was one of the most significant revelations in this year’s Pentagon China military power, as it shows the implications for U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific, Dr. Andrew Erickson, a professor of strategy at the Naval War College, told USNI News in his personal capacity.

“Taken together, China’s ASBMs — now potentially extending to intercontinental ranges with the DF-27 — pose a potent threat to surface ships across much of the Pacific. In effect, they constitute a new form of naval force,” said Erickson.

Erickson also said the DF-27 has “dramatically changed the naval balance” between Washington and Beijing.

“Although the United States and its allies possess manifold countermeasures in what would be a complex systems-of-systems contest, there is no denying that, by becoming the first major ASBM power and steadily expanding its ASBM families, China has dramatically changed the naval balance and the prospective ways of war in the Western Pacific and beyond,”