U.S. attempts to pierce China's veil of strategic nuclear ambiguity.
In post #82, I listed the broad range of known delivery vehicles for "China's Nuclear Strike Force." One of the most well-kept secrets on the planet is the size of China's thermonuclear arsenal. The Pentagon has no idea how to deal with China unless it knows with certainty the size of China's nuclear deterrent.
Let's review some key facts.
1) China was the fourth nation in the world to explode a thermonuclear weapon in 1967, ahead of the French.
2) China launched her first satellite into space in 1970.
3) Putting (1) and (2) together, China has possessed the capability to build thermonuclear-tipped ICBMs for 40 years. Over the years, China has improved her miniaturization technology to the point of building a W-88 class warhead by the 1980s.
We also know that China has demonstrated the ability to send multiple satellites into space on one rocket. This dual-use technology is the basis for MIRVed ICBMs.
The point is that China has been able to build advanced MIRVed thermonuclear ICBMs for at least twenty to thirty years.
4) Everyone agrees that China's nuclear arsenal is smaller than the U.S.'s roughly 10,000 (e.g. deployed and strategic reserve) warheads.
5) The key question that everyone wants answered is: how much "smaller" is the Chinese nuclear arsenal? Are China's nuclear warheads closer to 200 or 2,000 in number? The U.S. wants to know.
Hence, the latest clever political move to pressure China to disclose the number and locations of her nuclear arsenal. The U.S. has disclosed the total number of its nuclear warheads (which we all knew numbered in the many thousands) and now it wants to know China's big secret.
For the last 40 years, has China been sitting on her hands and doing "not much"? Or, as many suspect, how big of a nuclear arsenal has China built in secret over the last 40 years?
U.S. says China nuclear programs lack transparency | Reuters
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U.S. says China nuclear programs lack transparency
WASHINGTON
Tue Apr 6, 2010 1:57pm EDT
(Reuters) -
Lack of transparency surrounding China's nuclear programs raises questions about its strategic intentions, the United States said on Tuesday.
Barack Obama | China
"
China's nuclear arsenal remains much smaller than the arsenals of Russia and the United States," the administration said in a nuclear policy document published on Tuesday.
"But the
lack of transparency surrounding its nuclear programs -- their
pace and
scope, as well as the strategy and doctrine that guides them -- raises questions about China's future strategic intentions."
"The United States and China's Asian neighbors remain concerned about the pace and scope of China's current military modernization efforts, including its quantitative and qualitative modernization of its nuclear capabilities," it said.
China last month unveiled its 2010 military budget with a spending hike of 7.5 percent, a relatively low figure that surprised outside analysts after more than two decades of double-digit rises.
The U.S. report reiterated the Pentagon's oft-stated wish to hold a strategic dialogue with the Chinese military that would "provide a venue and mechanism for each side to communicate its views about the other's strategies, policies, and programs on nuclear weapons and other strategic capabilities."
"The goal of such a dialogue is to enhance confidence, improve transparency, and reduce mistrust," the report added.
China ended weeks of uncertainty last week when it announced that President Hu Jintao would attend a summit next week on nuclear security in Washington.
China had previously delayed saying whether Hu would participate in the multinational meeting hosted by President Barack Obama. U.S.-China ties have recently been clouded by economic and political disputes.
Washington angered Beijing by announcing a $6.4 billion arms package for Taiwan early this year, and China responded by postponing several high-level exchanges between U.S. and Chinese military leaders.
But China did not freeze all military-to-military contacts as it did in response to previous U.S. arms deals with Taiwan.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Paul Eckert, Editing by Alan Elsner)"
http://china.globaltimes.cn/diplomacy/2010-05/528550.html
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US calls on China for more nuke transparency
* Source: Global Times
* [02:27 May 05 2010]
* Comments
By Liu Dong
China pledged Tuesday "extreme restraint" in its nuclear development, as the
US revealed Monday the size of its nuclear stockpile, whilst warning about isolation for any state that defies the current disarmament trend.
The Pentagon disclosed that the US holds 5,113 nuclear warheads as of September 30, including operationally operated warheads, both in active and inactive reserves, an 84 percent curtail from the 31,225 in 1967 and a 75 percent cut from the 22,217 in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell.
The figures, the first official disclosure of the half-century-long top secret, were released as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference unfolds, at which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that this revelation serves to enhance transparency concerning the US arsenal and which is conducive to
urging other nuclear-armed states to follow suit.
China was specifically singled out, as a senior US defense official renewed calls for greater transparency by China, saying there was "little visibility" when it came to Beijing's nuclear program, Reuters reported.
Zhang Zhaozhong, director of the Science and Technology Research Division of the National Defense University, rebuffed the US claim of China's lack of a transparent policy concerning the nuclear arsenal as unsubstantiated.
"On the contrary, the publicized figure is merely shrouded tactics, as the US holds at least 9,000 nuclear warheads," Zhang added.
China will "exercise extreme restraint over developing nuclear weapons," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Tuesday in a regular press briefing.
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China will continue to maintain nuclear power at the lowest level, only for national security needs. We are willing to make joint efforts with the relevant countries toward nuclear disarmament and a nuclear-weapons-free world," the spokeswoman added."
