(AP) NEW DELHI – India announced the successful test launch Thursday of a new nuclear-capable missile that would give it the ability to strike the major Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai for the first time, a significant step forward in its aspirations to become a regional and world power.
The Agni-V missile, with a range of 3,100 miles, still requires a battery of tests and must clear other bureaucratic hurdles before it can be inducted into India’s arsenal in a few years. But officials hailed the launch as proof the country has taken its place among the world’s most powerful and scientifically advanced nations.
“The nation stands tall today,” Defense Minister A.K. Antony said, according to the Press Trust of India.
The test came just days after North Korea’s failed rocket launch, but sparked none of the same global condemnation aimed at Pyongyang, an internationally isolated regime that has been banned by the U.N. from testing missile technology.
China is far ahead of India in the missile race, with intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching anywhere in India. Currently, the longest-range Indian missile, the Agni-III, has a range of 2,100 miles and falls short of many major Chinese cities.
“At the moment there is a huge assymetry in China’s favor,” said C. Uday Bhaskar, the former head of the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses. After it adds the missile to its arsenal, however, “India’s deterrent profile in the region would be appropriately burnished.”
Video released by the government showed the Agni-V taking off from a small launcher on what appeared to be railroad tracks at 8:07 a.m. from Wheeler Island off India’s east coast. It rose on a pillar of flame, trailing billows of smoke behind, before arcing through the sky.
The missile hit an altitude of more than 370 miles, its three stages worked properly and its payload was deployed as planned, the head of India’s Defense Research and Development Organization, Vijay Saraswat, told Times Now news channel.
“India has emerged from this launch as a major missile power,” he said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin declined to discuss the launch at a regular news conference Thursday, saying only that India and China should work together as strategic partners.
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