© Getty Images/Feng LiNuclear-capable missiles are displayed on parade in Beijing, 2009.
As the US threatens to withdraw from the New START treaty over Chinese non-participation, domestic pressure from inside China builds for a larger strategic nuclear arsenal. Could this be a good thing?
In an
op-ed published in Chinese newspaper
Global Times, its editor-in-chief Hu Xijin, argued that
China should seek to upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal from its current level of about 200 antiquated weapons to a modernized force comprising more than 1,000 nuclear weapons, including more than 100 modern mobile DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), each armed with 10-12 nuclear warheads, capable of striking the US mainland.
The deployment of DF-41 missiles, when combined with China's new JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and nuclear-armed H-20 strategic bombers, would give China
a capable nuclear TRIAD that rivaled those of the US and Russia.While Hu Xijin's op-ed received considerable support on Chinese social media,
there was some pushback. Zhao Tong, a senior fellow in nuclear policy at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, based in Beijing, has
argued that even in a climate of deteriorating Sino-American relations,
any effort on the part of China to build a viable strategic nuclear arsenal on par with that of the US was counterproductive and dangerous.
Comment: The money for this bailout legislation comes from...1) taxpayers, 2) printing presses, 3) China?