For a long time, expanding the nuclear arsenal has been a core selling point in the "China threat theory" created by the United States, and the US media "Wall Street Journal" has once again hyped up China's nuclear force construction. The newspaper quoted a person familiar with the matter as saying that China was worried that if war broke out in the Taiwan Strait, the United States might intervene, so in order to prevent Washington from intervening, Beijing decided to strengthen its nuclear forces.
China already has hundreds of nuclear warheads, but by around 2030, the number of Chinese nuclear warheads will expand to thousands. The newspaper claimed that the strategic signal from China's move is extremely obvious, that is, to enhance anti-intervention capabilities by strengthening nuclear forces, while giving the People's Liberation Army sufficient nuclear counterattack capabilities. However, the newspaper also stressed that China's policy of not using nuclear weapons first under any circumstances will not change due to the expansion of the nuclear arsenal for the time being.
In the past two years, both the US media and the US military and politicians have frequently hyped up China's nuclear forces. Last November, the U.S. Department of Defense submitted its "China Military and Security Development Report 2021" to the Senate, declaring that the People's Liberation Army is vigorously developing its nuclear forces, and that the People's Liberation Army may have as many as 700 "deliverable" nuclear warheads in the next five years. In addition to increasing the number of nuclear warheads, the PLA is developing more advanced nuclear weapons delivery platforms.
The report claims that China has most likely established a "Trinity nuclear strike force." To make the report appear to be credible, the Pentagon also cited a set of commercial satellite monitoring data. The people's liberation army has built a large number of missile silos in gansu and other western regions, and has deployed 350-400 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles here. Analysts said that the US side continues to create public opinion that "China is vigorously developing nuclear forces", and there is a dual purpose.
The first is to put pressure on China to join the US-Russia nuclear disarmament negotiations and put a "tight curse" on the development of nuclear forces by the People's Liberation Army. Under the New START Treaty between the United States and Russia, which entered into force in February 2011, the two countries are required to reduce the number of nuclear warheads, icing ballistic missiles, and nuclear weapon vehicles to 1,550, 700, and 800, respectively, within the time set forth in the treaty.
However, ten years after the implementation of the Treaty, according to data disclosed by the United States and Russia, nuclear disarmament efforts have not achieved the expected results, and some of the indicators have not decreased but have risen. Military experts said that the main reason why the nuclear disarmament work between the United States and Russia is difficult to advance is that the two sides do not trust each other. In order to escape the criticism of the international community, the United States has tried to make China a "shield", saying that China is also a nuclear power and should join the nuclear disarmament negotiations, and if China refuses to join, the United States and Russia have reasons to refuse to reduce nuclear warheads.
However, the fact is that China's nuclear forces are seriously unequal to those of the United States and Russia. Taking the number of nuclear warheads as an example, China currently has less than 400 nuclear warheads, while the United States has close to 6,000. In terms of nuclear weapons delivery, the United States has established a perfect "Trinity nuclear strike system", while China relies more on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic nuclear submarines are far from enough, and strategic bombers are even less.
According to the data given by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the number of nuclear warheads in the United States and Russia accounts for more than 90% of the total number of nuclear warheads in the world, and the two countries shoulder special and priority responsibilities in nuclear disarmament. To allow China to join the US-Russia nuclear disarmament talks is to make China cut off its own arms and shake the foundation of its founding. If China is to join the nuclear disarmament negotiations, so will nuclear-armed countries such as britain, France, and India.
The second is to find a "reasonable" reason for the United States to upgrade its nuclear arsenal. Analysts say the United States is not satisfied despite having the world's strongest nuclear forces. In order to consolidate military hegemony, the United States continues to upgrade its nuclear arsenal. According to the Pentagon's Fiscal Year 2023 Military Budget submitted to the U.S. Congress, the Biden administration plans to set aside $34.4 billion for nuclear forces.
Of these, $6.3 billion is spent on the development and construction of a new generation of Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarines, $5 billion for the equipment of the B-21 stealth strategic bomber, $3.6 billion for the development of the Sentinel land-based intercontinental ballistic missile, and $1 billion for the development of new air-launched cruise missiles that can carry nuclear warheads.
It is not difficult to see from this plan that the Biden administration must not only upgrade the nuclear arsenal comprehensively, but also make nuclear weapons tactical, that is, used in actual combat. Facts have proved that it is the United States that is really engaged in nuclear threats and nuclear blackmail around the world, and China has maintained an extremely cautious attitude toward the development of nuclear weapons since it became a nuclear-armed country in the 1960s.
China's nuclear forces are designed to meet the country's own strategic needs, not to threaten other countries, so they have been at a minimum level. In the future, China will continue to follow the existing nuclear weapons policy, build nuclear forces according to actual needs, and will never accept US nuclear coercion.