The US naval intelligence community believes that China is getting close to fielding the world's first anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), prompting concerns as to the survivability of United States Pacific Fleet carrier strike groups in the face of such a threat. Identified as the DF-21D - indicating its lineage in the DF-21 medium-range ballistic missile - the ASBM would be fired from mobile, land-based launchers and be capable of achieving a range in the order of 1,500 km[.]
This does not mean that our Navy is suddenly about to become inferior to China.
What it does mean is that our carriers are at risk if they approach within range of these weapons and risk letting China take the first shot. This is relevant for racing to Taiwan to help the Taiwanese hold off a Chinese invasion.
Assuming that China has solved the problem of finding and targeting our carriers (not insignificant tasks, I should add), we will need to use long range missiles to take out the Chinese DF-21Ds before our carriers approach within range. So our forces will need to find and target the mobile missiles and strike China itself in order to minimize the risk to our carriers. We don't want to rely on Aegis anti-missile systems as our first line of defense.
The result is that our Navy will be slowed down in reaching Taiwan should China attack Taiwan. That's bad enough. But in order for our ships to operate within range of the DF-21Ds, China will force us to escalate a US-Chinese fight from one fought in the Taiwan Strait and over Taiwan to one that from day one is fought on Chinese soil (in the air anyway,as we attack ground targets).
China hopes that their new weapon will keep us at bay. It may just compel us to escalate from day one of the fight.
