The DF-21D missile, part of China's strategic anti-area/access denial (A2/AD) arsenal, represents a pivotal component of Beijing's military posture against US naval power in the Indo-Pacific. Stemming from a long history of prioritizing innovative defense mechanisms, the DF-21D is designed to thwart US military influence near China's borders, particularly concerning Taiwan. China's reliance on a vast ballistic missile arsenal, including the DF-21D, aims to deter US intervention by posing significant threats to US Navy assets, leveraging China's strategic advantages to potentially reshape regional dynamics without direct confrontation, reflecting Beijing's calculated approach to expanding its maritime and territorial influence.
The DF-21D Missile: China's Countermeasure to US Naval Dominance
The DF-21D: China’s Ultimate Trump Card Against the US Navy: The People’s Republic of China is vulnerable to US military power. Since the 1960s, Beijing has striven to create radical, advanced technologies designed to rebuff US military power projection. The Dong Feng-21, which was first conceived in the 1960s, was completed by the early 1980s and first deployed by China’s military in 1991.
For Chinese strategists, the idea of preserving the core of China has dominated their great nation’s foreign policy discourse. This is not merely a product of the modern Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This is a key theme repeated throughout their 4,000-year history.
Constantly worried about barbarian invasions, China’s rulers historically strove to outpace these foes technologically and deploy innovative defensive weapons and tactics—including what Taylor Fravel called “Active Defense.” Writing in the Marine Corps Gazette in 2021, Maj. Timothy A. Ornelas reminds readers that China’s war planners describe their “active defense” strategy as, “strategically defensive but operationally offensive.”
The Best Defense is a Strong Offense
China’s behavior, therefore, in pushing its military’s reach into the First Island Chain (and seeking to dominate the second and third island chains) is nothing new. It goes hand-in-hand with China’s ancient behavior of pushing beyond the small collection of ethnically Han villages around the Yellow River basin into wider Eurasia beyond—and why China’s rulers ultimately built their Great Wall which still stands as a testament to China’s obsessive quest for security. The DF-21, as well as its subsequent variants—notably the DF-21D—and all the rest of China’s growing missile arsenal is a new age version of this Great Wall mentality that dominated the minds of China’s rulers for thousands of years.