China Kept An Eye In Bay Of Bengal On Agni-5 Test

China has sent its second research vessel to the Indian shores weeks before India conducted the key flight-test of its 5,000-km-range Agni-5 inter-continental ballistic missile, according to reports.

After India’s successful launch yesterday, New Delhi joins a select club of China along with four other countries — US, Russia, France and UK — who have the capability of launching a missile with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) technology.

Chinese ship ‘Xiang Yang Hong 01’ departed from Qingdao in China on February 23 and entered the Bay of Bengal on Sunday according to open-source intelligence expert Damien Symon on social media platform X.

The 4,425-tonne ship is believed to be 480 km — off the coast of Visakhapatnam, which is believed to have the base of India’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. It is believed that the spy ship must have watched the missile test and calculated data of its range and capability when it took place yesterday.

On March 7, India issued a notice to air mission, a mandatory alert warning to its neighbours about the probability of a missile test.

This is not the first time China has deployed its vessel ahead of a missile test. Earlier in November 2022, when India was planning a missile test, Chinese research vessel Yuan Wang 06, entered the Bay of Bengal. India then had called off the test.

Western countries along with India feel that the fleet of the Chinese ‘scientific’ ships have been collecting information on rival navy assets in the Indian Ocean region.

According to the US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, China maintains the world’s largest fleet of civilian research vessels. It says at least 80% of 64 such vessels operating globally since 2020 have displayed ‘warning indicators’ that their work is tied to military objectives.

In February, Chinese vessel Xiang Yang Hong 03 arrived in Male, which Chinese officials say was for scientific purposes.