NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan — China’s Dong Feng-17 ballistic missile has probably existed for more than a decade, quietly adding to the People’s Liberation Army arsenal of ever more modern weaponry.
Suddenly in June it was showcased for the first time in official Chinese media, as analysts tell it, and described as one of China’s top military assets as English-language subtitles extolled its battlefield capacities.
Experts say the broadcast answers Asia-Pacific military exercises by other countries and aims to warn the U.S. military that the missiles better known as DF-17s, for short, have what it takes to cause particular pain in any war with China.
“Video footage might be political signaling or mild deterrence, because the DF-17 is very hard to defend against, especially for large surface targets,” said Alexander Huang, chairman of the Council of Strategic and Wargaming Studies in Taipei. “It’s a big threat to carriers and other assault ships.”
The medium-range missiles are equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle, which means they can fly at lower altitudes in unpredictable directions.
DF-17s have existed for at least 12 years and been available to the People’s Liberation Army since 2019, according to a paper by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.
The release of DF-17 into the Chinese media syncs up time-wise with the ongoing U.S.-led 2026 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) maritime military exercises near Hawaii and the U.S.-Japan drills in late June.
“The other exercises were pretty tough and harsh, clearly targeting Chinese possible actions,” Huang said.
By showing the DF-17s after RIMPAC, China wants to suggest that the missiles can evade interception and make “saturation strikes” at the same time, said Chen Yi-fan, assistant professor in the Diplomacy and International Relations Department at Taiwan’s Tamkang University.
“This signaling is intended to underscore the PLA’s growing confidence in its capacity to overwhelm regional missile‑defense systems and complicate operational planning” by any military opponents, Chen said.
The missiles, as shown during a drill in an English-language YouTube video by the Chinese state-run media outlet CGTN, can make “ultra-precise” strikes and “penetrate advanced defense systems”, per the video.
CGTN said the missiles may be used without fixed launch sites and in any kind of weather.
“The coordinated salvo launches greatly improve strike efficiency and battlefield safety, demonstrating China’s advances in military technology,” CGTN said.
The U.S. think tank describes the DF-17 missiles as 11 meters (36 feet) long with a range of 1,800 to 2,500 kilometers (1,118 to 1,553 miles). It says they can carry conventional or nuclear payloads. China has 1,300 missiles and 300 launchers.
“As one of the PLA’s premier strategic assets, the DF‑17 is likely reserved for the most consequential scenarios, such as foreign military intervention perceived as supporting Taiwan independence,” Chen said.
American military bases in Hawaii, Guam and Japan are monitoring the uptick in People’s Liberation Army naval drills around Taiwan and Beijing’s tiffs with the Philippines in the South China Sea.
China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan, a de-facto U.S. ally. China and the Philippines – a U.S. treaty ally – contest sovereignty over small islets in the sea between them.
The DF-17’s hypersonic glide vehicle would give the missiles an edge in battle, said M. Taylor Fravel, Security Studies Program Director at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“This maneuverability means that it is much harder to defeat than a ballistic missile without a hypersonic glide vehicle,” Fravel said. “It can more easily penetrate missile defenses.”
Earlier DF-series missiles flew the traditional path of a surface-to-surface missile, meaning they were easier to predict than the flight course of a DF-17, Huang said.
U.S. forces may need to expand their long-range radar technology to spot any DF-17s launchers and respond preemptively in the case of any conflict, analysts said.
The U.S. is already developing systems “similar” to the DF-17, Fravel said. He said those include the U.S. army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon missile system as well as hardware that may defeat hypersonic glide vehicles.
A long-range hypersonic system is designed to strike well defended targets from thousands of miles away.
“Washington must accelerate the development and deployment of its own hypersonic weapons to establish credible mutual deterrence,” Chen said.
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