China building up nuclear arsenal ‘in response to US pressure’
- Analysts
say Beijing is focusing on submarines and ground-launched missiles as
Pentagon forecasts country will have 1,000 warheads by end of decade
- One source says China could produce more nuclear weapons at short notice but sees no need to do so just now
Minnie Chan, November 4, 2021
China is focusing on developing more submarine-launched and
ground-based nuclear missiles amid increasing pressure from the United
States, Chinese defence analysts have said.
A report released
by the Pentagon on Wednesday said China had expanded its nuclear
capacity on land, sea and air, estimating the country could have up to
700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027 and at least 1,000 by 2030.
Chinese
foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the report had “disregarded
facts and was full of prejudice and bias” that aimed at “stirring up
the China nuclear threat theory”.
He told a scheduled press
briefing that Beijing had a “no first use” policy, adding “no country
will be threatened by China’s nuclear weapons”.
Wang said:
“China always firmly pursues a self-defence strategy … and consistently
keeps the scale of its nuclear arsenals at the lowest level that is
enough to protect national security.”
China is the world’s
second largest producer of nuclear power and able to develop advanced
fast reactors and reprocessing facilities that would allow it to produce
a large number of warheads within weeks should a war appear likely,
according to a military insider.
“China is able to produce
1,000 nuclear warheads, but so far it has not been necessary because of
the exorbitant maintenance costs,” the insider, who requested anonymity
due to the sensitivity of the topic.
Zhao Tong, a senior
fellow at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy in Beijing,
said the number of nuclear warheads China has is still far lower than
the US, and Beijing is building up its submarine fleet to counter
Washington.
“Based on the report, we can see a new trend
in China’s nuclear strategy, which focuses on developing more
submarine-launched and ground-based ICBMs” Zhao said.
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The
Pentagon report said the People’s Liberation Army will have at least
eight ballistic missile submarines in operation by 2030, including the
six Type 094 subs that are currently active and two next-generation Type
096s.
Type 094 subs can carry at least 12 JL-2, or Big Wave,
submarine-launched ballistic missiles that can strike the western part
of the US mainland. Construction work on the Type 096 began last year
and once they enter service they will be equipped with the more advanced
JL-3, which can strike anywhere in the United States.
“We can see the nuclear capacity of the PLA Navy is catching up with their American and Russian counterparts,” Zhao said.
The US navy has 14 Ohio-class nuclear subs, while Russia has 11 comparable vessels.
The
report also said satellite images suggested Beijing was building three
solid-fuel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silo fields, which will
cumulatively contain hundreds of new ICBM silos.
“China found
that maintaining only a small number of nuclear warheads was not enough
to counter the increasing pressure from the US, so it started to expand
its nuclear arsenal as one of the countermeasures,” Zhao said.
Song
Zhongping, a former instructor with the PLA’s rocket force, also said
that the country needs to increase its arsenal to complete the nuclear
triad of missiles that can be launched from submarines, from bombers or
from the ground.
“China is also making an effort to
develop all kinds of strategic weapons. Besides nuclear, there are also
hypersonic glide vehicles, high-energy weapons such as rail guns and
others,” Song said.
The PLA’s strategic support force is the
key pillar of China’s strategic weapons operator, which oversees space,
cyber, electronic, information, communications, and psychological
warfare missions and capabilities, as Beijing has ambitions to grab
advantage in more domains on the pace with the US, the Pentagon report
said.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post
print edition as: China builds nuclear arsenal ‘amid increasing US
pressure’