Well, it was convenient to believe China's lie at the time:
China's military conducted a flight test of an anti-ship ballistic missile in the contentious South China Sea last weekend in violation of a pledge four years ago by President Xi Jinping not to militarize the waterway.
"Of course the Pentagon was aware of the Chinese missile launch from the man-made structures in the South China Sea near the Spratly Islands," Lt. Col. Dave Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Washington Free Beacon.
"What's truly disturbing about this act is that it's in direct contradiction to President Xi's statement in the Rose Garden in 2015 when he pledged to the U.S., the Asia-Pacific region, and the world, that he would not militarize those man-made outposts," Eastburn stated, referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
This would be a good time to review how we might break the Chinese kill chain for those anti-ship ballistic missiles.
And of course, taking the man-made structures and islands goes to the source.
I would be remiss if I didn't note that Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles in the South China Sea can go west against India as well as east against America. If China wants to threaten America, such missiles on the Chinese mainland are a bigger threat to U.S. forces.
To the west in the Indian Ocean you have China reliant on Middle East oil and access to African raw materials. And the sea trade routes to Europe draw Chinese attention this way. Indeed, China's first overseas military base is in Djibouti, at the Horn of Africa. And China has claims on Indian territory.
China's attention is clearly pulled west.
Because war against America would be a far more serious affair for China, I imagine India has more to worry about this Chinese missile development than America does.
