A missile test by China marks its growing nuclear ambitions
America worries that it is looking to surpass its own capabilities one day
THE LAST time China fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) out over the Pacific, Xi Jinping was 27 years old, China’s GDP per head was less than $200 and America had just lifted an arms embargo on the country. So the missile that rose from Hainan island on September 25th—carrying a dummy warhead and plunging into the waters around French Polynesia, some 12,000km to the east—was a mark of China’s soaring nuclear ambitions.
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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Making a sPLAsh”
From the October 5th 2024 edition
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