The Chinese ship is about 100 meters long and has advanced remote sensing equipment
New Delhi:
Within days of India raising the alarm about an impending missile test off the coast of Odisha, a Chinese research vessel has sailed towards India’s east coast and is now anchored in international waters off the Indian coastline.
Considering that India has announced that the missile may land in a large area, this missile test, which is expected to be conducted at any time, is particularly important. Some say it is a submarine-launched ballistic missile that can hit targets 3,500 kilometers away.
The Chinese ship “Xianyang Hong 01” is currently less than 260 nautical miles (about 480 kilometers) away from the coast of Visakhapatnam. Incidentally, India has three nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines deployed there, which are arguably the most sensitive weapons systems in India’s arsenal.
The missile India plans to test may be the K-4, a nuclear missile designed to be launched from a submarine. The missile was designed by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and is capable of carrying a warhead weighing up to 2 tons.
But how do we know that India plans to test this missile? The signs were in a NOTAM alert issued last week. NOTAM means Notification to Pilots and is an alert issued to designate an area as a no-fly zone. The new alert for the Bay of Bengal clearly indicates that India is planning to conduct a missile test anytime between March 11 and 16. The no-fly zone specified in the NOTAM alert stretches 3,500 kilometers deep into the Bay of Bengal in southern Bangladesh. The range of the K-4 missile is approximately 3,500 kilometers.
China has been monitoring Indian activities, including missile tests off the east coast. Therefore, the positioning and timing of the 4,813-ton scientific research vessel Xiangyanghong 01 have aroused people’s doubts. NDTV tracked how the ship changed positions over the past week before arriving at its current location.
Enter: Damien Symon
The ship entered the Strait of Malacca on March 6 and was discovered between Great Nicobar Island and the Indian Peninsula on March 8. According to reports, the ship was put into use in 2016. It is about 100 meters long and has a range of 15,000 nautical miles. Reports from Chinese state media. Reports say it has remote sensing equipment capable of conducting exploration to a depth of 10,000 meters.
The vessel is believed to be equipped with sensors to detect underground acoustic signatures. This means it can sense sounds associated with submarines. These sounds can be detected by the ship’s sonar and its deployed buoys, which can be used to record the acoustic footprint of the submarine and possible underwater emissions. This information is nothing short of an intelligence gold mine.
The navy told New Delhi TV the ship was “under surveillance”. “As of now, the vessel is operating outside the exclusive economic zone of the Bay of Bengal,” the company said.
A few weeks ago, another Chinese vessel of the same class sounded alarm bells in New Delhi.
The Xiangyanghong 03 has now left the coast of Sri Lanka and is conducting surveys in the area, and docked in the Maldives last month. Relations between New Delhi and Male were tense after Maldives President Mohamed Muizou asked Indian troops to leave. Relations between India and the Maldives have hit an all-time low since Muizzi took office last year. “We may be small, but that doesn’t mean they have the right to bully us,” Muizu said after visiting Beijing and meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping. The remarks, which did not name any country, were seen as a swipe at India. .
India downplayed tensions. When asked about the relationship between India and Maldives, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar said the neighbors need each other. “History and geography are very powerful forces. There’s no escaping that.”
Before the Chinese ship docked in Male last month, the Maldives said it would not conduct any research and would only conduct “rotation and replenishment.” However, India’s concerns are not limited to Maldivian waters. The ship had been meandering in the waters between the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Admiral R Kumar told New Delhi TV that mapping underwater areas “could also have military applications, in terms of the ability to deploy submarines or operate submarines”.
