The Pentagon released its annual China military report yesterday, with many unsupported claims and much vitriol against China. “This year’s report highlights the links between China’s national strategy and developments within China’s armed forces,” the Pentagon press release said. “Under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the strategy calls for ‘the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ by 2049, including the transformation of the People’s Liberation Army into a ‘world-class’ military.”
“The report comes at a time when the world is witnessing the aggressive assertion of that strategy in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, where China continues to undermine the international rules-based order to advance their own interests,” it goes on. “This report accounts for the P.R.C.’s national strategy and the drivers of China’s security behavior and military strategy, covers key developments in China’s military modernization and reform, and provides new insights into China’s strategic ambitions in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.”
EIR has not yet reviewed the full 200-page report, but one aspect dominating news headlines about it is the assertion that China intends to double the size of its nuclear arsenal by 2030. For the first time, the report officially estimates the number of warheads in the Chinese arsenal, putting that number at 215, significantly less than the estimates of 290 to 320 warheads produced by arms control experts. If the estimate is accurate, then the “doubling” of the Chinese arsenal that the report is alleging will bring it to about 430, compared to the U.S. total of 3,800 warheads plus another 2,000 in storage but awaiting dismantlement.
According to Hans Kristensen, the director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project, the DOD report repeats dubious claims about the conditions for China’s no-first-use policy, but admits that there is no sign that Chinese leaders have changed the policy. “Yet the DOD report claims that the scope of China’s nuclear modernization and its lack of transparency ‘raise concern that China is not only shifting its requirements for what constitutes a minimal deterrent, but that it could shift away from its longstanding minimalist force posture.’”
Further, according to Kristensen, the DOD report claims there is “increasing evidence” that China is moving towards “launch on warning” posture for at least a portion of its force. As evidence for this, the report lists the construction of new silos coupled with space- and ground-based early-warning capabilities that would be needed to support a LOW posture. “This is circumstantial evidence, however, as China has deployed silo-based DF-5s for decades and potentially could maintain its current strategy even with new silos and improved early-warning,” Kristensen writes.
The main force behind the production of the report appears to be Chad Sbragia, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China Policy who claimed in remarks to a small number of reporters on Monday (Aug. 31) that China’s nuclear expansion plan may foreshadow even more ambitious plans. “An ability to double the stockpile not only demonstrates a move away from their historical minimum deterrence posture but places them in a position where they can readily grow their force beyond this number,” Sbragia said.
The report also claims that China is seeking to build a logistics network all across the Indian Ocean. China has “likely considered” Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other countries in Africa and Central Asia as locations for military logistics facilities, it reportedly says. China has one overseas base in Djibouti—compared to the many hundreds of bases that the U.S. has all over the world—but it’s only a few miles from the U.S. base at Camp Lemonier. The U.S. also believes that Cambodia has signed a secret agreement with Beijing to allow the Chinese armed forces to use one of its naval bases — an account both Asian countries have publicly denied, according to the report.
