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Topic: Air Warfare, and Naval Warfare Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Asia Tags: China, First Island Chain, Indo-Pacific, Missiles, People’s Liberation Army Navy, and US Navy YJ-20: Meet the Chinese Missile Built to Break the US Navy January 10, 2026 By: Brandon J. Weichert
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The YJ-20 is particularly concerning for American defense planners because large US ships still have no reliable countermeasures against hypersonic weapons.
China’s military is going through radical changes, as Beijing works to ensure its military modernization program is effective. Near the end of 2025, Chinese state media released impressive footage of a new YJ-20 hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile being launched from a Chinese Type-055 destroyer at sea. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) dubbed this a “finalization test,” meaning in practical terms that this weapon could be operational at any time.
The YJ-20 Missile Is a Hypersonic Carrier-Killer
The YJ-20 anti-ship hypersonic ballistic missile fits nicely in with Beijing’s overarching strategy of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD), China’s game plan for stymying US military power projection into the First Island Chain. Chinese leaders plan to use such a massive arsenal that it will, they think, stop the United States military from being able to deploy assets to the waters around Taiwan.
By having so many missiles, hypersonic weapons, and drone swarms, China plans to basically overwhelm whatever defenses US Navy warships and airbases in the region possess—or at least have these capabilities on hand so that the Americans keep their forces from any fight. Whereas traditional cruise missiles can be intercepted, the YJ-20 employs a high-speed, quasi-ballistic or boost-glide flight path that exceeds Mach 5, designed to make interception with current US defenses impossible.
As its anti-ship designation suggests, the YJ-20 system is meant to strike large US surface warships at a distance—these include aircraft carriers, amphibious ships, cruisers, and the inevitable Trump battleship that is supposed to be built.
Although the video released by China’s government detailing the launch of the YJ-20 depicted it being fired from one of China’s Type 055 destroyers, it is likely that this system can be fired from submarines, too. After all, certain classes of Russian submarines can fire Russia’s hypersonic weapons. And the stealth that most submarines employ paired with the high-velocity of the YJ-20 once fired, means these weapons could wreak havoc on US Navy warships in ways that no other weapon system today could.
America’s Defenses Just Don’t Work Against Hypersonic Weapons
If the Chinese claim is accurate, then the YJ-20 would represent a seriously advanced ship-launched hypersonic weapon, giving Beijing a potent tool to challenge Western and allied naval forces from beyond-visual-range.
Interestingly, the Type-055 is China’s largest surface combatant replete with 112 vertical launch system (VLS) cells. Because hypersonic weapons, such as the YJ-20, are designed to compress the engagement timeline against defended targets (such as US carriers), they will get through the onboard defenses.
Losing even one carrier could end up sinking any offensive action the Americans were planning to stop China from taking Taiwan. That’s because the carriers are too big, too complex, and way too expensive to easily replace if lost in combat—and without those platforms, the Navy’s primary power projection system is gone (though the submarine would necessarily take up the mantle).
Last year, the YJ-20 was publicly unveiled at China’s Victory Day parade, showcased as part of a larger retinue of advanced strike missiles. Analysts rightly assess that the development of this system will push China’s reach beyond the First Island Chain.
In all, China is transitioning the YJ-20 from development into at-sea testing and potential service. This indicates that China is nearly ready with its strategy of keeping the US Navy off-balance and stuck over the horizon, with no way to reliably move its assets closer to China’s shoreline. The United States, unfortunately, lacks both a reliable defense against this system and a comparable offensive hypersonic weapons platform.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is a senior national security editor at The National Interest. Recently, Weichert became the host of The National Security Hour on America Outloud News and iHeartRadio, where he discusses national security policy every Wednesday at 8pm Eastern. Weichert hosts a companion book talk series on Rumble entitled “National Security Talk.” He is also a contributor at Popular Mechanics and has consulted regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including The Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, and the Asia Times. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Shutterstock / testing.
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Источник: nationalinterest.org