Chinese media rebuff new US concerns over nuclear weapons

Chinese media have rebuffed concerns by US officials over a recent report which calls into question Beijing's commitment to its "minimum deterrence" strategy and accused the Asian-Pacific country of expanding its nuclear capabilities.

The Pentagon and Republican congressmen on Tuesday voiced fresh concerns about China’s buildup of its nuclear forces after an American Federation of Scientists report said satellite images showed China was building a new field of silos near Hami in the eastern part of its Xinjiang region.

“This is the second time in two months the public has discovered what we have been saying all along about the growing threat the world faces and the veil of secrecy that surrounds it,” the US Strategic Command said after a New York Times article on the AFS report.

There has been no official Chinese response to these US reports. Some people in China have suggested that those silos claimed by the US might be foundations of wind power plants.

Reacting to US concerns, an editorial appeared on the website of Global Times, an English-language Chinese newspaper, said that the US media and relevant institutes repeatedly hyped the newly discovered "silos" in China.

"The media and the mentioned organizations hype China's 'silos,' which provides more reason for the US to upgrade its nuclear arsenal."

There are two major reasons why some people in the US, and in the West in general, have been talking more and more about China's nuclear weapons, it added.

"First, the US has made China its main strategic rivalry. As it has adopted various policies to lay siege to China, the risk of strategic confrontation between the two countries has increased. As the US is strengthening its own nuclear weapons arsenal, it naturally assumes that China will do the same.

“Second, China's economic and technological strength is sufficient beyond doubt to support the expansion of its nuclear weapons arsenal. It would be easy for China to do so if it wanted to."

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But the editorial said that the US media and relevant institutes repeatedly hyped the newly discovered "silos" in China.

"Americans are striking an attitude in talking about what China would do with a stronger nuclear capability. We don't know whether they are naive or hypocritical.”

“China's strengthening of its nuclear deterrent is to suppress the impulse of some US forces to impose maximum pressure on China or even provoke a war to crush the will of the Chinese people."

"In the face of some extreme US politicians' repeated provocations and the US' arrogance in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits, China must take resolute countermeasures against the US' arrogance.”

"Americans should know as clearly as the Chinese do about what level of nuclear power China really needs to build. It would be a nuclear force strong enough to make the US - from the military to the government - fear."

The editorial further said, "Washington needs to be clear that in an era when China's economic and technological capabilities are abundant, the US' implementation of a policy with strong pressure and the resulting increased risk of a China-US strategic collision will inevitably bring a sense of urgency for China to intensify the building of its nuclear deterrent.”

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The Pentagon's 2020 report to the US Congress assessing China's military capabilities suggested that China would double its warhead stockpile in the next decade. Also, three Republican senators claimed in June that China would have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2029, achieving some kind of "nuclear parity with the US."

The US and its Western allies have kept modernizing their nukes over the past decades. The editorial said that some US forces are also keen to further modernize the US nuclear arsenal.

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