“Yes,” Biden said when asked by reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One for Pennsylvania if he was concerned about China’s hypersonic missiles, Reuters reported.
Supersonic missiles in the upper layers of the atmosphere travel at speeds 5 times the speed of sound, or about 6,200 kilometers per hour.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry denied the validity of a report published by the Financial Times earlier this week, in which it stated that China tested a weapon last August that made its way through space and orbited around the Earth before descending towards its goal, which it eventually missed.
The British newspaper, quoting five unnamed intelligence sources, said that last August, the Chinese army launched the “Long March” or “Long March” missile, carrying on board a “hypersonic glide vehicle that flew in low orbit around the world.”
The newspaper pointed out that “the sliding vehicle orbited the globe before descending towards its target, which it missed by about 32 kilometers.”
The sources revealed that the new system is capable of “overcoming the American anti-ballistic missile defense systems located in Alaska, which were prepared to drop incoming projectiles over the Arctic – the Chinese system will be able to strike the United States from the south.”
She stated that the incident “amazed US intelligence officials, as it shows that China has made amazing progress in developing its hypersonic weapons.”
The test took place at a time when the United States and its adversaries around the world are scrambling to produce hypersonic weapons, the next generation of weapons designed to deprive adversaries of response time and conventional warfare mechanisms.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday that the White House had expressed concern through “diplomatic channels” about China’s hypersonic missile technology, Reuters reported.
And last September, an agency of the US Department of Defense, “the Pentagon”, successfully tested a weapon capable of flying at a speed exceeding the speed of sound five times.
This was the first successful test of this class of weapons since 2013.
It is noteworthy that besides China, the United States, Russia and at least five other countries are working on hypersonic weapons.
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