Secret hypersonic launch shows China is rocketing ahead in missile arms race

“It’s a definite signal from the Chinese to the US that they are vulnerable,” Bronk says. “You could look at it as a way of China saying to the US ‘don’t bother spending masses on a new technology to defeat this’. “But you could even flip it around as a way of tricking the US into an insanely expensive ‘Star Wars’ system.”