This weapons test does not change the basic facts of the situation, and certainly not the balance of power in East Asia. While the US intelligence community was at last report still gathering data on the test, no new technology really seems to have been required. It can therefore be read not as a matter of pushing the envelope, but of China (in most respects) catching up to where the US and the Soviet Union were forty years ago—just as is the case with its manned space program. Nor is a single test the same thing as the organization of a militarily effective combat unit. Indeed, as the restraint of both superpowers during the Cold War demonstrated, it is not even a sign that the creation of such a unit is imminent.

None of this is to say that China is insignificant from a security standpoint, of course. It may already be a bigger economic power than the Soviet Union ever was, and this is manifesting itself in the country’s considerable and developing military power. Its submarine fleet, nuclear arsenal, and space capabilities (among other dimensions of its military forces) are formidable in many respects, and will become more so. History also suggests that this growing power will be a factor in China’s relations with the rest of the world. But exactly how it will figure into those relations remains an open question. And in either event, the alarmist visions to which we are so often treated in questionable estimates and reports are more fantasy than fact.

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Elhefnawy, Nader. "Making Sense of China's Weapons Test." The Space Review. February 5, 2007.