Ukraine is the focus of the media. For weeks, the conflict has been raging. The bodies are piling up. There are never-ending reports of Russian crimes. There is widespread clamor for a more forceful Western reaction. The Russian military is carrying out crimes, but the Ukrainians are exploiting these horrible stories to drag us into a conflict that might end in nuclear Armageddon. When Biden’s foreign policy team sought to exert pressure on Moscow through Beijing, they were caught off guard. We conveyed information concerning Russia’s force deployments near the Ukraine border. This material was eventually shared with the Russians by China.
People familiar with Chinese leadership’s thinking believe China has expedited its nuclear arsenal growth due to a shift in its appraisal of the danger posed by the United States, offering new light on a buildup that is escalating tensions between the two nations.
China's nuclear push long predates Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but U.S. wariness about direct involvement there may have reinforced Beijing’s greater emphasis on nuclear weapons, seeing them as a way to deter the U.S. in a Taiwan conflict.@AlastairGalehttps://t.co/jXRyc0McbB
— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) April 10, 2022
The Chinese nuclear endeavor far predates Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the U.S.’s wariness about getting directly engaged in the war there has certainly reinforced Beijing’s choice to place greater emphasis on building nuclear weapons as a deterrent, several of these people believe.
Chinese authorities view more powerful nuclear weapons as a strategy to keep the United States out of a future battle over Taiwan.
According to researchers who examine satellite photographs of the area, construction on more than 100 suspected missile silos in China’s remote western region has escalated this year. The silos might be used to store nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the United States.
U.S. official and private sector assessments put China’s nuclear arsenal at the low hundreds of warheads, significantly below the nearly 4,000 warheads owned by both Russia and the U.S. The Pentagon said it now anticipates China to have 1,000 warheads through the end of this decade.
