China’s missile shield outshining Trump’s Golden Dome

China’s leap to field a prototype “Golden Dome” missile shield before the US has finalized its own design signals a new phase in the rivals’ arms race, where the drive for security threatens to heighten nuclear risk. Last month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that China had fielded a working prototype of a “Golden Dome”-style global missile defense system before the US had finalized its own plans, underscoring a widening technological gap in strategic defense.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), led by senior engineer Li Xudong of the Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology, has deployed a “distributed early warning detection big data platform” reportedly capable of monitoring up to 1,000 real-time missile launches worldwide.

Using an array of space, air, sea and ground-based sensors, the system integrates fragmented data from diverse platforms, identifies warheads versus decoys and transmits information across secure but bandwidth-limited military networks using advanced protocols such as Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC).

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