technology

If we learned one thing from Ukraine it's that the US is structurally incapable of ramping up mass industry.

Does China want to fight that kind of war though, a drawn out multi year attritional war where a city with a pre war population of 60 000 takes 15+ months to capture, a war in Ukraine that has gone on for longer than the US campaign against Japan in the Pacific during WW2. I doubt China wants to fight that kind of war over Taiwan for instance. If China wants to seize Taiwan, they would want to be quick and decisive, and to deter any US intervention either out of fear of Chinese capabilities, or by quickly sinking an aircraft carrier or destroying US airbases if the US does intervene, in a forcible display of Chinese military capabilities. That's what my read is right now.

I can see use for both expensive hypersonics and dirt cheap systems like this which will still be expensive to shoot down

Some sort of Hi-Lo mix could be useful, I can see the value in that. There are always lots of targets to prosecute in war, and not everything needs a high end system to hit it. In that case, it just needs to be more difficult to shoot down than a cruise missile, and probably won't be fired at highly defended targets. In Ukraine, Russia does this a lot, firing ballistic missiles at areas with no or minimal systems to defend against ballistic strikes. Something like this, cheaper than an Iskander-M or Kinzhal, but still very capable, would be very useful for Russia right now. But that brings me back to the first question: is China interested in fighting or preparing to fight that kind of war? Are they going to structure their rocket forces like this? I have doubts.