Nuclear weapons 705 - Chinese Nuclear Arsenal - Part 2 of 2 Parts

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     China carried out a total of forty-five test detonation of nuclear devices before they signed the CTBT. It only has three yield options. These include a several kiloton warhead for solid fueled ICBMs and SLBMS, a two megaton warhead for liquid fueled missiles which have an intermediate range, and a five megaton warhead for liquid fueled ICBMs. All of these Chinese nuclear warheads are considered to be strategic weapons. They have no nuclear warheads that are considered to be “tactical.”
    China has publicly stated that they do not need to have any tactical nuclear warheads because they do not intend to ever start or fight a nuclear war with the U.S. They do not believe that the U.S. would ever start a nuclear war with China as long as China has a credible retaliatory nuclear capability which is satisfied by their current arsenal. Unlike the U.S. and Russia, the Chinese do not keep any of their nuclear weapons on alert, ready to fire on demand.
     Chinese nuclear experts are concerned that the U.S. might come to believe that it could destroy China with a massive first attack and missile defenses good enough to absorb whatever China did manage to launch in retaliation.
    The recent modest Chinese efforts to modernized and upgrade their nuclear arsenal have been undertaken to persuade any U.S. president that it would not be worth the risk to attack China. The Chinese are working to convince U.S. planners that enough of Chinese missiles would be able to get through U.S. defenses to deal serious damage.
    The best way for Congress and the U.S. public to satisfy their justified concerns about the Chinese nuclear capability upgrade would be to make use of two international mechanisms to constrain China. Those two constraints would be the aforementioned CTBT and something called the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT). The CTBT would prevent the Chinese from conducting test detonations of nuclear devices required to develop more advanced warhead design. Getting the Chinese to agree to the FMCT would limit the Chinese nuclear arsenal to its current level.
    China has expressed their willingness to enter into international arms control agreements with the United Nations. Chinese negotiators in multilateral nuclear conversations have affirmed that China is willing to ratify the CTBT when the U.S. does. China has also said that it is willing to enter into negotiations on the ratification of the FMCT. The fact that China is willing to consider these serious constraints on its nuclear weapons arsenal is significant when discussing issues regarding the current size of the Chinese nuclear arsenal and its current modernization program.
     It is obvious that China is not interested in trying to match the nuclear arsenal of the U.S. and China. The huge size of China and its large population makes it a difficult target for nuclear annihilation. Any attempt to destroy China on the part of the U.S. would also be suicidal for the U.S. The fact that China has a small nuclear arsenal and does not participate in the belligerent and provocative public threat of nuclear war that is common with the Russian government and President Putin suggests that China is not really an existential threat to the U.S.
Chinese nuclear forces emblem: