Why China’s Anti-Ship Missiles Are a True Danger That Only America Can Counter Long-range Chinese missiles threaten countries throughout the Pacific, but America might be the only country with the money, technology, and will to find ways to defend against them. Key point: Beijing knows it can hold warships and bases throughout much of the Pacific at risk. But Washington also knows this and is working on anti-missile defenses. An old adage of defense analysis is that a weapon system that has not been tested does not, in any meaningful sense, exist. Testing gives an organization confidence that the weapon will function as intended, helps to work out technological bugs, and offers an opportunity to integrate a particular weapon into a broader system of technologies. If that’s the case, then China’s DF-21D and DF-26B “carrier killer” missiles now appear to exist.