Dana Rohrabacher: “Mr. Speaker, in February 2000, just the beginning of this year, a Russian-built Sovremenny class destroyer sailed…”

“Mr. Speaker, in February 2000, just the beginning of this year, a Russian-built Sovremenny class destroyer sailed through the Taiwan Strait with a mixed Russian and Communist Chinese crew, and the ship sailed to its new home in southeast China. The ship's most lethal weapon was the supersonic SSN-22 Moskit missile, also known as the Sunburn missile, which was developed by Russia during the Cold War to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers and Aegis class warships. On his recent visit to Beijing, leaders of the Chinese People's Liberation Armed Forces told Admiral Dennis Blair, Chief of U.S. Pacific Command, that if U.S. aircraft carriers once again sailed close to the Taiwan Strait, just as they did during the cross-Strait tensions of 1996, that the People's Liberation Army would fight a battle 'at any cost.' The Moskit missiles now allow the Communist Chinese Navy to make such threats against the U.S. Navy's most powerful platforms, and they allow the Communist Chinese to endanger the lives of thousands of American service personnel. The Moskit missiles, which can be mounted on ships or on land-based mobile platforms, can carry either conventional or nuclear warheads. A new version is being developed to be fired from jet fighters. It is the most dangerous antiship missile, the Russians and now the Communist Chinese have in their fleet.”