Nuclear missile fired from North Korea could hit US in 33 minutes, claims Chinese study

New Delhi: North Korea could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States that would hit the country in just 33 minutes, a Chinese study has claimed.

Scientists in Beijing have simulated the ICBM launch and believe Pyongyang would be able to hit the country if the US missile defence network failed to intercept it.

According to the South China Morning Post, the research involves the hypothetical launch of North Korea’s Hwasong-15, a missile first fired in 2017.

It is a two-stage, nuclear-capable missile with an effective range of 13,000km (8,077 miles) “sufficient to hit the entire US homeland”, the report quoted Tang Yuyan-led team of the Beijing Institute of Electronic System Engineering, a top research institute in China’s aerospace defence industry, as saying.

The simulation also suggested that there were gaps in the US nuclear defence armoury.

According to the report, the scientists said their tests showed the existing US missile defence network had gaps in its ‘kill chain’ and would struggle to identify and defend against an attack.

The simulation started with a launch from Sunchon, a North Korean city south of capital Pyongan, and targeted Columbia in Missouri. The specific location was selected for its centrality in the middle of America.

Running the tests, the team said a theoretical launch would cause the US to receive an alert 20 seconds later.

Within 11 minutes, the US’s nuclear defence would fall into action as intercepting missiles would blast out of Fort Greely in Alaska’s Southeast Fairbanks Census Area.

A second phase of missiles would then launch Vandenberg Space Force Base in California should the first defence fail.

Tang’s team said the US defence was impressive but they said the simulation identified some gaps in the ‘kill chain’ that North Korea could exploit.

The study claimed that the reason for the research was to evaluate the effectiveness of US nuclear defence capabilities.

Strained US-China ties

The study comes at time when the relations between the two superpowers has hit rock bottom.

The latest back-and-forth started when President Xi Jinping said in a speech that China was the victim of “comprehensive containment and suppression by western countries led by the US.”

Two days later, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines called Xi’s remarks “the most public and direct criticism that we’ve seen from him to date” — and she responded in kind.

China’s Communist Party “represents both the leading and most consequential threat to US national security and leadership globally,” Haines told a Senate hearing that covered everything from dangers posed by TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, to the threat of war over Taiwan to China’s role producing precursors to fentanyl, which kills tens of thousands of Americans every year.

The dueling narratives brought into sharp focus how the US and China increasingly have one thing in common: a growing distrust of the other side. Even worse, the escalating rhetoric is entrenching divisions that could make it harder for both sides to find a way to co-exist peacefully over the long term.

To be sure, there’s no sign of a war breaking out anytime soon. Haines and Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns also said the US intelligence community assesses that China doesn’t want a military conflict over Taiwan, particularly after seeing the US and allied support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. The countries remain each other’s top trading partners and both sides have insisted they don’t want a new Cold War.

Still, each side is now accelerating preparations for that very scenario. Xi this week implored his government to prepare for greater self-reliance, especially in science and technology, while the US is pushing its allies to reorient supply chains to deny China advanced chips and other strategic goods.

And while pessimism around US-China ties is nothing new, relations have deteriorated at an alarming speed since President Joe Biden met Xi in November and pledged to improve ties. A national uproar over the alleged Chinese spy balloon that traversed the US fanned tensions, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a trip to Beijing meant to build upon the Biden-Xi summit.

After the US military shot down the balloon, a response that China called “hysterical,” Biden said he expected to soon be speaking with Xi. Yet nearly a month later, the two leaders haven’t spoken — and there’s no indication of when they might do so.

Adding to tensions were assessments from the Department of Energy and the FBI that the coronavirus pandemic likely began with a lab leak in Wuhan, China. Recently, the US sanctioned five Chinese companies for allegedly supplying aerospace parts for Iranian drones.

Privately, Chinese officials say their attempts to extend a hand to Washington have been consistently slapped away. One Chinese official said the US speaks publicly about improving ties with China, but seeks confrontation in practice. Another said that the countries are caught in a downward spiral that neither side knows how to stop.

With inputs from agencies

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