It would have to get up into operational hypersonic altitude (presumably with a rocket booster of its own) quickly, while the missile was boosting, locate, lock on and score a hit well before the warhead got into ballistic flight in vacuum. That's cutting it pretty close, a lot has to happen just right in a very short time.

A conventional rocket like Patriot would probably work better, although that is more a point defense weapon.

No I don't see this as any sinister conspiracy, its just a plain ordinary military industrial complex boondoggle. Now if the Chinese had a few of these solid-fuel boosted hypersonic cruise missiles set up along their coast line, it could make it difficult for US carrier forces maneuvering to support operations in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Phillipines, Singapore and even Viet Nam, all potential areas the Chinese feel are in their sphere of influence, and which we may feel compelled to intervene in. An aircraft carrier, unlike a boosting IRBM, can't move that far in an hour.

There are already rumors the Chinese are developing an anti-carrier rocket-boosted subsonic cruise missile: sort of a rocket-assisted Exocet. With those striking at carriers at wavetop level, and hypersonics raining down from the stratosphere, the carriers would have their hands full, and be effectively neutralized by two separate threats unless they stayed well offshore where they posed no threat to the East Asian Littoral. We have no defense against this kind of weapon at all, and the subsonic cruise has no counter except Phalanx, and we must remember, Phalanx has yet to prove itself in real combat.

I would suggest it would serve US strategic interests better, and use our defense R&D $ more effectively, to develop more anti-missile missiles capable of taking on these weapons, and deploying at least a few on every destroyer or cruiser escorting our carrier battle groups and amphibious task forces. We could also develop an airborne variant that could be flown off the carriers, also. It might make sense to upgrade our radar and C&C technology to help manage this kind of battle.

Again, we are the nation that relies heavily on the task force/battle group concept with a carrier or LPH at its core. Without it, we are pretty much reduced to conducting a set of tactical ship-to-ship duels of no strategic consequence.