China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[Biscuits]

I 100% agree on China spending good money on nuclear delivery systems. For today's standards, China's nuclear delivery is still a work in progress. No point having nukes if you can't get them to the enemy. A good, modern and capable SSBN class + SLBM is a top top priority for China now. These would complement greatly the land-based ICBMs protected by the tunnel networks.

The Chinese ABM program also a work in progress, and its very quiet. I hope that there are some serious progress there that they are not telling everyone. Because man it is so needed right now against both the USA and India. Especially important to guard from any nuclear cheap shots from India, if it loses a border war with China.

I have a different opinion on the topic of the no. of warheads China needs to stockpile though.

I recall there were a few epic debates on this thread about whether China should maintain just 300 warheads or expand that stockpile. If this debate had occurred just 2 years ago, I could still buy the idea of China sticking to 300 warheads for minimal deterrence. After seeing the US for the last 2 years, my argument is that 300 warheads is just simply not enough for minimal deterrence.

2020 is a wake up call for anyone still believing in Western benevolence and rationality. Covid-19 showed just how much the Western ruling classes truly cared about saving the lives of their average citizen. Their MSM even run campaigns to justify why they are right and China is wrong. Good 'Western values' that are knocked into our heads for decades like: objectivity, critical thinking, racial equality, rationality, and honesty. All so easily forgotten in just a span of a few months into 2020. So this idea that Western society, especially American society is rational and would fear a nuclear winter is beginning to look quite shaky. Both a deadly virus and nuclear fallout are practically invisible to the average person. If many don't mind a deadly virus spreading through their cities, why should they care about invisible nuclear fallout destroying their DNAs? Besides, prepper culture is gaining some traction in America. Making doomsday seem more 'survivable'.

Now is truly a critical and dangerous period for China. The sentiments of the Free World on China have gone from dislike to utter hatred. Now you have unqualified think tanks, religious nut jobs, and pure racists getting the ear of governments in the West, and in India. They don't mind nuclear genocide being perpetrated on China and the Chinese people. Especially with the prospect of a non-Caucasian nation potentially going to the top of the now-established Anglo-American world order.

The story of Russia today should be a lesson for China. Russia is in a different, yet similar conundrum with China. Russia once had 2 lines of defence to prevent its destruction from the West. First was its economy and geopolitical influence on Eurasia. Euro-Maidan 2014, the subsequent sanctions, and booting of Russia from G8 finally rendered this line irrelevant. The second line is Russia's 5000 warhead nuclear arsenal. That one is still holding strong and its the one best thing keeping Russia safe from the West. Without those nukes, NATO would already be launching an invasion of 'liberation' of Russia to plunder its wealth of minerals, resources, and assets.

China also have two similar lines of defence to prevent its destruction from the West. The first is of course its economy. Any massive disruption to China-Western trade is surely gonna hurt both sides massively and upset the global order. Problem is that, its already begun. The US, Australia, and India is definitely experimenting their decoupling from China with their respective trade wars. Say what you want about whether its justifiable or not. But there are growing voices saying that this is good, and that the pain is actually worth it. Then throw Covid-19 and the 'China-virus' campaign on top of it. Now this defensive line is really starting to erode. So China's next, and last line of defence is its military. Conventional war looks survivable, but the US ultimately has the upper hand in nuclear force. If USA decides to go nuclear with its massive 5000 warheads arsenal, vs China's 300 nuclear stockpile, nuclear war looks quite 'winnable' (we'll talk about what 'winning' means later). Add into that mix the many ABMs between USA and China, things are starting to look 'rosy' for America. So, this last line of defence to protect Chinese civilization is not looking solid at all.

In case anyone doesn't get it. My argument is that the USA is no longer a rational country. It has flouted, or walked away from every nuclear arms control treaty except the NPT. Under Bush, Obama, and now Trump. This trajectory will not change with Biden. China just cannot trust this post-2020 USA to be a rational actor. China's rise to be the no.1 economy in this world is now unstoppable, except for war. A war, that USA and Western powers must win at any cost if they want to maintain their hegemony. If they are mad enough, by nuclear holocaust if necessary. I must assert that nobody wins in a nuclear war. But when the dust settles, those who hurt the least from this nuclear war is going to call themselves the 'winner'. USA can be certain to call itself a 'winner' if it sends at least 1000 warheads to China first, and receives a maximum of only 300 warheads in exchange.

China should not wait for the day when America starts itching to push the button. Stop them in their tracks ASAP. The minimum deterrence must be updated accordingly. If China can give more hurt to USA than just a mere 300 warheads, that would give China more sensible MAD security, like Russia. Then every Chinese citizen can sleep easy, knowing that the USA would have to think twice before going for the button. The CCP mouthpiece, Global Times floated the idea of expanding China's nuclear stockpile to 1000 warheads. More would be better, but 1000 warheads is a good start. So it seems like the Chinese leadership is going to expand China's nuclear arsenal after all. Excellent.

What China once said (we have around 300 nukes ready) logically not be taken as an absolute but rather as how many nukes are ready and waiting at a given moment. Or it might be a complete lie.

If China actually had only 300 nukes similar to UK or France, they wouldn't invest so much in ABM and more exotic defenses that cost way more than nukes themselves. They'd just put up the minimum needed for deterrence.

Even more obviously, during certain parades PLA has moved near 300 nukes total in a df41 + other ballistic missile formation. Its not realistic at all that China would put the entirely of its nuclear arsenal in a parade.

Its impossible to know how many they have in total but however many there are, it seems that the amount/delivery of nukes do give PLA the confidence to go for a victory strategy rather than deterrence strategy, as is shown by building large nuclear shelters and ABM systems.

If a country has inadequate number of nukes, their first worry would be increasing the stockpile instead of building a shield.

 

[silentlurker]

The great Alaskan quake, second biggest earth quake since 1900 that shook Alaska for 8 minutes at Richter scale of 9.2, released energy ×50 times than current combined global nuclear arsenal's power.

Giving each natural disaster a numeric energy output and using that for comparison is questionable.

In an earthquake scenario most of the energy is spent moving a large amount of dense stone a small distance. A small amount of energy is spent moving a large amount of dirt a small distance. Not much of the energy goes into producing dust. The Alaska earthquake originated from a depth of 25km for example.

Nuclear bombs on the other hand concentrate their energy on the surface. Yes, a large percentage of the energy makes light and heat, but I still bet a much greater proportion is spent kicking up dirt compared to earthquakes.

 

[Nobonita Barua]

Giving each natural disaster a numeric energy output and using that for comparison is questionable.

Naah, it's not.
Every single "work" is done by one form of energy or the other. To start & sustain a process energy is required. Without energy there is only 0.
In universe, at a point of time & space , a certain amount of energy creates an entity.
You can use a pen to do the same thing a bullet does at point blank range or use a gas cylinder as a bomb.

The thing you are talking about of here is design . A bomb is designed for particularl purpose. Earthquake isn't that.

However that wasn't my point.

The reason why this particular "nuclear winter" phrase keeps popping up, is because we are inclined to believe that we have some kind of apocalyptic power in our hand that will that destroy everything if we use it. This fetish is further empowered by popular Hollywood movies where we keep using nukes to defeat aliens. In reality, we keep talking about this MAD which will destroy US all.

The entire scenario is messed up. The more you keep thinking of how powerful those weapons are, the more your fingers will itch to press the button. It's human nature.

We need to tone that down except necessity. That's why I gave that comparison to show how irrelevant those are compared to far greater power that is around us. It was more mathematical & philosophical rather than bit by bit matching answer.

The bottom line is,we are already irrelevant. Using those will make us totally irrelevant. Which kind of makes us look like dumbf**k.

 

[Annihilation98]

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Looks like the us now might even start to encourage its allies to develop nuclear weapons including taiwan
This article also said that us nuclear umbrella to japan is not credible after all as the us will not trade tokyo for los angeles thus is better for japan to develop nuclear weapons herself

If japan and taiwan develop nuclear weapon, all nation will follow including iran, saudi arabia, Indonesia, and many other countries.US nuclear hegemon will be threatened because if japan and taiwan has nuke, then they doesn't need protection from US. US will be useless in asia pacific and no more superpower status.US conventional arm sales will be decline too.

 

[by78]

DF-17's TEL vehicle, which differs slightly from the ones seen at the last national day parade. It features built-in night vision assistance for concealed driving in the dark.

 

[Skywatcher]

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Looks like the us now might even start to encourage its allies to develop nuclear weapons including taiwan
This article also said that us nuclear umbrella to japan is not credible after all as the us will not trade tokyo for los angeles thus is better for japan to develop nuclear weapons herself

Taipei is going to get bombed before their program goes very far (good luck hiding it for long).

 

[Anlsvrthng]

If japan and taiwan develop nuclear weapon, all nation will follow including iran, saudi arabia, Indonesia, and many other countries.US nuclear hegemon will be threatened because if japan and taiwan has nuke, then they doesn't need protection from US. US will be useless in asia pacific and no more superpower status.US conventional arm sales will be decline too.

Japan is as ally/protected of/by the USA like France was ally and protected by Germany during the 2nd WW.


And China reaction for things like this easy to map, just need to answer what would happens if Mexico or any central American country develop nuke, how the USA would react ?

 

[ougoah]

Japan is as ally/protected of/by the USA like France was ally and protected by Germany during the 2nd WW.


And China reaction for things like this easy to map, just need to answer what would happens if Mexico or any central American country develop nuke, how the USA would react ?

France was not under "protection" of Germany during WW2. During WW2, France was invaded (since we're talking about during the war lol). Relations between the two normalised somewhat after WW1 and treaty of Versaille but such a thing never happened. At least nowhere near the degree of Japan and US relations.

Mexico already has decent relations with the US. Mexico will never take up any offer from anyone to help her develop warheads and delivery systems. This idea is hilarious. Would be like the US offering Kazakhstan nukes and missiles to hold only against China.

Taiwan and Japan getting encouragement to develop nukes is also hilariously stupid. Neither of these countries will want to do that for obvious reasons I can't even be bothered explaining. If think tanks honestly are writing about this, they are filled with underqualified morons. Anyway, there's good reason China and Russia have never assisted with nuclear or missile development for any strategic state or potential proxy. One good reason is because no one wants to rock the boat so violently that it could come back to bite them in the ass or at least burn many bridges with nations they don't have any interest in offending and threatening indirectly.

This isn't how any of this works but at a really worst case scenario or in response to escalations in this manner, these options do exist and the programs are probably already well developed as contingencies e.g. helping Iran fully develop intercontinental strike capability of the MIRVed/MaRVed megaton nature.

 

[SpicySichuan]

Taipei is going to get bombed before their program goes very far (good luck hiding it for long).

Talked to another Chinese PhD student the other day. He said if Taiwan were to use its hypothetical nukes against China, blow up the Three Gorges Dam, or taking other military actions that cause millions of civilian deaths on the Mainland, the words "liberation" and "unification" would simply become "extermination."

 

[ougoah]

Talked to another Chinese PhD student the other day. He said if Taiwan were to use its hypothetical nukes against China, blow up the Three Gorges Dam, or taking other military actions that cause millions of civilian deaths on the Mainland, the words "liberation" and "unification" would simply become "extermination."

Which is one reason out of many why Taiwan would not consider developing nukes. If China has threatened or ever threatens Taiwan with nukes, then I can understand but escalating from a much, much, much weaker position is hilarious a suggestion by whoever wants to make the claim.

Mainland invasion of Taiwan island without US assistance will almost certainly be successful. So it is up to Taiwanese leadership to decide whether a successful mainland invasion is going to end with Taiwan throwing some nukes at China (I doubt China will respond with nukes here*) and then having all the Taiwanese decision makers held accountable (certain death) and hopefully all those nukes intercepted OR go through with militarily forced reunification where most of Taiwan will remain intact and both sides suffer minimal losses in equipment, infrastructure, and lives.

Even if we assume American actors/directors and stooges within Taiwanese decision makers use the nuclear threat to hold mainland against invading Taiwan, the Taiwanese leadership has enough say and skin in the game to understand this is way too risky a move and will end with them punished and dead one way or any other way. It's just a matter of how destroyed do you want the island to end up as. Neither China side wants it destroyed! That's for sure otherwise mainland invasion would have happened (could still potentially if diplomatic means are totally exhausted and escalations happen).

* Mainland won't nuke Taiwan back if it gets nuked by Taiwan. It'll far more likely retaliate against the US if mainland gets devastated beyond a certain "acceptable" limit wherever that limit might be. Because the mainland would correctly understand any Taiwanese nukes would only exist and launched at the insistence of the US and stooges. On top of this it also makes no sense to nuke yourself because if Taiwanese nukes are flying, PLA has invaded Taiwan and it will be successful so since you already more or less own the island, why destroy everything on it that's worth a damn and make it unhabitable??! So surely CCP isn't stupid enough to blunder that way. It'll literally be PRC nuking what is essentially PRC at that point. What they'd want to do is nuke the actual instigators - USA, and kill the Taiwanese decision makers that have made such an outcome possible. This discourages those actions as already touched upon above.