In my last blog, I discussed the nuclear arsenal of Israel. Today I am going to talk about Chinese nuclear weapons and delivery systems. A recent report from a Chinese environmental office revealed advancements in the Chinese nuclear weapons program.
The Shaanxi Province Environmental Monitoring Center posted on the Internet a list of its projects which included site monitoring for the Dong Feng-41 missile. The U.S. Defense Department reported to Congress this year that the Chinese were working on the Dong Feng-41 which was said to be "a road-mobile, next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile capable of launching multiple nuclear warheads." There had been indications for years that the Chinese were working on the Dong Feng-41 but no Chinese governmental agency made any mention of such a project. The post was taken down quickly but the information that it contained had already escaped into the global media.
In addition to the Dong Feng-41, the Chinese are currently conducting tests of its standard land based missile, the Dong Feng-31A. Last year, the Chinese added the HK-6 nuclear bomb carrying aircraft that has a range two thousand miles to their nuclear delivery systems. U.S. analysts believe that China will also be launching three Jin-class nuclear missile carrying submarines this year with a ranged of four thousand and six hundred miles.
Land based missiles, submarine carrying missiles and nuclear bombers are the traditional triad of nuclear weapon delivery systems that the U.S. and Russia have depended on for decades. It is believed that such a triad of delivery systems can permit a country that has suffered a nuclear attack to strike back at the attacker. The Chinese triad is mostly dependent on the land-based missile systems because of the limited range of the bombers and the questionable reliability of the new submarines.
The Chinese have announced that they have a "no first-use" policy with respect to nuclear weapons. Policy analysts are questioning why China is building up its nuclear weapons and delivery systems at a time when both the United States and Russia are reducing their arsenals. Apparently the Chinese feel that they are so far behind the U. S. with respect to nuclear weapons that their nuclear arsenal would not deter the U.S. from launching a nuclear attack on China. It is estimated that China currently has about two hundred and fifty nuclear warheads as compared to over two thousand U.S. operational nuclear warheads.
Maj. Gen. Yao Yunzhu, China’s director of the Center of America-China Defense Relations for the Academy of Military Science recently said in a letter that "The Ballistic Missile Defense systems that the United States and its allies have deployed, or are planning to deploy, are capable of intercepting residue Chinese nuclear weapons launched for retaliation after it has already been attacked, thus potentially negating the deterrence effect of the Chinese nuclear arsenal.”
China has opted to increase its nuclear triad as a response to the imbalance with the nuclear triad of the U.S. It is possible that in the future, if China still feels threatened and at a disadvantage, it may abandon its "no first-use" policy which would destabilize the global nuclear situation.
Dong Feng-41:
