*ISLAMABAD*: China has sold Pakistan a powerful tracking system in anunprecedented deal that could speed up the Pakistani military’s developmentof multi-warhead missiles, reported *South China Morning Postlink>*.link>
News of the sale – and evidence that China is supporting Pakistan’s rapidlydeveloping missile programme – comes two months after India tested its mostadvanced nuclear-ready intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with arange long enough to hit Beijing or Shanghai.
Chinese authorities declassified information about the deal on Wednesday.
A statement on the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) website said China wasthe first country to export such sensitive equipment to Pakistan.
Zheng Mengwei, a researcher with the CAS Institute of Optics andElectronics in Chengdu, Sichuan province, confirmed to the South ChinaMorning Post that Pakistan had bought a highly sophisticated, large-scaleoptical tracking and measurement system from China.
The Pakistani military recently deployed the Chinese-made system “at afiring range” for use in testing and developing its new missiles, he said.
India and Pakistan are in a heated race to build up their nuclear weaponscapabilities.
India’s January 18 test of its Agni-V ICBM, with a range of more than5,000km (3,100 miles), is seen as a message that the South Asian giant candeploy a credible nuclear deterrent against China.
While India’s single-warhead missiles are bigger and cover longerdistances, Pakistan has focused its efforts on developing multipleindependently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), a type of missilecarrying several nuclear warheads that can be directed towards differenttargets.
The US Defence Intelligence Agency officially confirmed in March thatPakistan conducted the first test launch of its nuclear-capable Ababeelmissile in January 2017, “demonstrating South Asia’s first MIRV payload”.
Although the Ababeel missile has a range of only 2,200km, it can delivernumerous warheads to different targets. The technology has the potential tooverwhelm a missile defence system, wiping out an adversary’s nucleararsenal in one surprise attack.
There are growing concerns that MIRV technology will tip the strategicbalance between India and Pakistan and destabilise the subcontinent.
India has so far not found success in building a system that caneffectively deliver more than one nuclear warhead at a time.
But outside Pakistan, military experts believe that it will take much moretime before the Ababeel missile is ready for use in battle. It is thoughtto be still at an early stage of development, with plenty of room forimprovement.
It has been a long-held notion that Beijing is supporting Islamabad’smissile development programme. But solid evidence can seldom be found inthe public domain, making the CAS statement a rarity.
The Chinese team enjoyed VIP treatment during the nearly three months itspent in Pakistan assembling and calibrating the tracking system andtraining technical staff on how to use it, according to the statement.
“The system’s performance surpassed the user’s expectations,” it said,adding that it was considerably more complex than Pakistan’s home-madesystems. It did not reveal how much Pakistan paid for the system.
An optical system is a critical component in missile testing. It usuallycomes with a pair of high-performance telescopes equipped with a laserranger, high-speed camera, infrared detector and a centralised computersystem that automatically captures and follows moving targets.
The device records high-resolution images of a missile’s departure from itslauncher, stage separation, tail flame and, after the missile re-entersatmosphere, the trajectory of the warheads it releases.
The uniqueness of the Chinese-made system lay in its use of four telescopeunits, “more than normally required”, Zheng said.
Each telescope, with a detection range of several hundred kilometres, ispositioned in a different location, with their timing synchronisedprecisely with atomic clocks. Together, the telescopes provide visualinformation of unprecedented detail and accuracy, which missile developerscan use to improve designs and engine performance.
Using more telescopes allows the system to track more warheadssimultaneously from different angles, reducing the risk of losing a target.
Zheng said he could not elaborate further on the technology nor where inPakistan it was being used as it involved the country’s defence interests.
“We simply gave them a pair of eyes. They can use them to look at whateverthey want to see, even the Moon,” he said.
High-quality optics are essential in missile development, especially MIRVs,said Rong Jili, deputy director at the Beijing Institute of Technology’sSchool of Aerospace Engineering.
Other types of tracking devices, such as radar, can collect more precisedata at longer distances, but the Chinese-made optical system provided theintuitive, close-up look at real-life action that missile developerscraved, he said.
“Seeing it with our own eyes is completely different from mining dry data.It helps to not only diagnose problems, but also generate inspiration,”Rong said.
China has sold Pakistan many conventional weapons, including warships,fighters, short-range missiles, diesel submarines and surveillance drones.
A mainland military observer said the sale of the optical system was no bigsurprise, as it could not be used directly to develop long-range MIRVs.
They required small nuclear warheads with sophisticated control afterre-entry, and it was unlikely China would share such sensitive technologywith Pakistan, he said.
“China definitely doesn’t want a nuclear war breaking out between India andPakistan. Both countries sit right on our border,” said the analyst, whoasked not to be identified.