YJ-21
Chinese ship- and air-launched ballistic missile
The YJ-21 (Chinese: 鹰击-21; pinyin: Yīngjī-èryāo; lit. 'eagle strike 21') is a Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile.
History and development
An export version called YJ-21E was showcased in Airshow China 2022, depicted underslung from the H-6K bomber.
The air-launched YJ-21, also called KD-21, was showcased by Chinese state media in 2024. The export version, YJ-21E, was displayed at the Zhuhai Airshow again in November 2024. In July 2024, a photograph showed the H-6K bomber taking off while carrying four KD-21 missiles. In the same year, the KD-21 was also depicted as part of the armaments for China's CH-Series unmanned aerial vehicles.
In April 2025, the Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) official media account displayed H-6 bombers fitted with YJ-21 (KD-21) missiles. This report confirmed for the first time that KD-21 is operational with the PLAAF.
In 2022, an unidentified hypersonic missile was revealed by the Chinese Navy ahead of its 73rd anniversary, launching from a universal vertical launch system of the Type 055 destroyer. The Chinese Navy did not reveal the missile's designation, but defense analysts believed it to be the ship-launched version of the YJ-21.
The public source identifies “YJ-21” as chinese ship- and air-launched ballistic missile. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around YJ-21, Chinese and ship-.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q112450182. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2022, 2024 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “YJ-21” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.