BEIJING: China has sold Pakistan a powerful tracking system in an unprecedented deal that could speed up the military’s development of multi-warhead missiles, according to South China Morning Post. A statement on the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) website said China was the first country to export such sensitive equipment to Pakistan. Zheng Mengwei, a researcher with the CAS Institute of Optics and Electronics in Chengdu, Sichuan province, confirmed to the South China Morning Post that Pakistan had bought a highly sophisticated, large-scale optical tracking and measurement system from China. The country’s military recently deployed the Chinese-made system ‘at a firing range’ for use in testing and developing its new missiles, he said. Pakistan has focused its efforts on developing multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), a type of missile-carrying several nuclear warheads that can be directed towards different targets. The US Defence Intelligence Agency officially confirmed in March that Pakistan conducted the first test launch of its nuclear-capable Ababeel missile in January 2017, ‘demonstrating South Asia’s first MIRV payload’. Although the Ababeel missile has a range of only 2,200km, it can deliver numerous warheads to different targets. The technology has the potential to overwhelm a missile defence system, wiping out an adversary’s nuclear arsenal in one surprise attack. Military experts believe that it will take much more time before the Ababeel missile is ready for use in battle. It is thought to be still at an early stage of development, with plenty of room for improvement. The Chinese team spent nearly three months in Pakistan assembling and calibrating the tracking system and training technical staff on how to use it, according to the statement. “The system’s performance surpassed the user’s expectations,” it said, adding that it was considerably more complex than Pakistan’s home-made systems. It did not reveal how much Pakistan paid for the system. Published in Daily Times, March 23rd 2018.