Why China’s DF-31 missiles are still effective deterrents, decades after debut

Following what became a historic countdown, PLA Sergeant Major Zhao Jing tapped the laptop before him, declared “launch sequence initiated”, and exited the cabin of the missile vehicle he had ridden into the dense jungle of Hainan province.
Some 27 minutes later, a dummy warhead plunged into the southern Pacific Ocean in an uninhabited area near French Polynesia, thousands of miles from Hawaii.
The moment on September 25, 2024, marked China’s first full-range, trans-Pacific intercontinental…