U.S. Vice Admiral Jeffrey Trussler said during a virtual event this week that America is closely watching China’s anti-ship ballistic missile program, which he said is an attempt to destabilize the region, USNI reports.

“I’m not going to get [into] much more detail of what we know and don’t know about” the missile program, Trussler, deputy chief of naval operations for information warfare, said during a virtual event being held by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance on Wednesday. 

“But they’re pouring a lot of money in the ability to basically rim their coast in the South China Sea with anti-ship missile capability,” he continued. “It’s a destabilizing effort in the South China Sea, in the East China Sea, all those areas. When their claims of some of these contested islands – they’re militarizing those areas.”

The South China Morning Post reported last August that China’s People’s Liberation Army conducted a test-fire of a DF-26B missile and a DF-21D, which is known as an “aircraft carrier killer,” into an area in the South China Sea in between Hainan Island and the Paracel archipelago, which is disputed territory.

Trussler added, “That’s something we’re going to watch very closely. It’s something that confuses the international order and concerns the allies in the region. It’s one reason we work to keep the global commons open and the free flow of traffic. But when you see that – those are troubling developments. They’re probably aimed and specifically developed towards the United States Navy. So we watch them very closely. I hope they just keep pouring money into that type of thing. That may not be how we win the next war.”

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