China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

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Abominable

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ougoah said:
Right and my point is that China is well and truly above that and above that by quite far. It doesn't have the same issue of needing to show undisclosed facilities. Even Iran doesn't really need to. It doesn't show facilities it "does not have" ;)

With China, it's been able to refine material since the 1960s. This isn't new to China. It's probably got many facilities refining material. None of these facilities need to be reported or shown. There is no treaty or rule saying China must show others what nuclear processing facilities it has. It's the exact opposite of how this works. Secret nuclear facilities are just that, secret.

France does not inspect all of China's nuclear facilities. It just looks over the French reactor and the materials going and leaving it.

China has two of its own reactor designs, French ones, Russian ones, and an American one. It should also have plenty of facilities that are off the books, dedicated to refining weapons material. This is a given since this is how nuclear weapons are made.

Therefore no country is able to put together a good enough picture of how many kilograms of refined U or Pu China has and how many kilograms of raw ore it has in the ground. This means it is no more possible to figure out how many warheads China already has and can have than it would be for China to determine how many warheads the US can have. The possible range makes such a calculation near worthless.

China's reported count of around 300 warheads is based on what China said in the 1980s, extremely dated and unreliable information. It may serve as a minimum bound guess but the upper limit is impossible to determine with accuracy because China has its own nuclear reactors, has its own uranium ore reserves, has facilities refining material beyond the knowledge of outsiders, and no independent investigator has any right to check all of China's nuclear facilities and stockpiles any more than they have the right to demand China show them where secret facilities are.
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Agreed. People are used to hearing estimates based on annual production but that is only applicable to newer nuclear countries like Iran or North Korea where fissile material is limited.

China has had reactors operating outside of IAEA safeguards for decades now. That means a stockpile several tons of fissile material.

In other words, China has as many warheads as it wants.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
ougoah said:
Right and my point is that China is well and truly above that and above that by quite far. It doesn't have the same issue of needing to show undisclosed facilities. Even Iran doesn't really need to. It doesn't show facilities it "does not have" ;)

With China, it's been able to refine material since the 1960s. This isn't new to China. It's probably got many facilities refining material. None of these facilities need to be reported or shown. There is no treaty or rule saying China must show others what nuclear processing facilities it has. It's the exact opposite of how this works. Secret nuclear facilities are just that, secret.

France does not inspect all of China's nuclear facilities. It just looks over the French reactor and the materials going and leaving it.

China has two of its own reactor designs, French ones, Russian ones, and an American one. It should also have plenty of facilities that are off the books, dedicated to refining weapons material. This is a given since this is how nuclear weapons are made.

Therefore no country is able to put together a good enough picture of how many kilograms of refined U or Pu China has and how many kilograms of raw ore it has in the ground. This means it is no more possible to figure out how many warheads China already has and can have than it would be for China to determine how many warheads the US can have. The possible range makes such a calculation near worthless.

China's reported count of around 300 warheads is based on what China said in the 1980s, extremely dated and unreliable information. It may serve as a minimum bound guess but the upper limit is impossible to determine with accuracy because China has its own nuclear reactors, has its own uranium ore reserves, has facilities refining material beyond the knowledge of outsiders, and no independent investigator has any right to check all of China's nuclear facilities and stockpiles any more than they have the right to demand China show them where secret facilities are.
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I never claimed anything was illegal on China's part. Never said the French were independent inspectors. I pointed out that if the US can have facilities for fissile materials then China can too. It was Raj that tried to spin it as illegal for China to have. Since there was speculation on how many nukes China had because of how many silos were being constructed, all I did was mention what I read a way they figure that out. Because China bought Western reactors, there had to have been some agreement on the rules. Where does China fit? Closer to France or closer to Iran? So that probably means independent inspectors with access. I bet China had to reveal then how much they had of everything and you can go by that as a basis of how much at minimum they have. Doesn't matter what faculties they maybe hiding. You can still figure out a minimum.
 
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ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
AssassinsMace said:
I never claimed anything was illegal on China's part. Never said the French were independent inspectors. I pointed out that if the US can have facilities for fissile materials then China can too. It was Raj that tried to spin it as illegal for China to have. Since there was speculation on how many nukes China had because of how many silos were being constructed, all I did was mention what I read a way they figure that out. Because China bought Western reactors, there had to have been some agreement on the rules. Where does China fit? Closer to France or closer to Iran? So that probably means independent inspectors with access. I bet China had to reveal then how much they had of everything and you can go by that as a basis of how much at minimum they have. Doesn't matter what faculties they maybe hiding. You can still figure out a minimum.
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Fair enough I thought you were insisting that it's possible to figure out China's warhead mass by virtue of how many reported reactors there are and the fact that a few of them have inspectors cataloging fuel and spent material. Obviously all that is not how it works.

A conservative minimum estimate is possible but quite useless isn't it. We're talking about maximums and that is entirely impossible to estimate for China with god knows how much ore, how many reactors and refinement facilities.
 
ZeEa5KPul

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
Registered Member
siegecrossbow said:
It can be implied that silo construction is related to the fissile material production and by extension, nuclear warheads/delivery vehicle production. At the very least, those aren't going to be empty silos for very long.
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Might this be referring to construction of reactors for nuclear submarines or, dare I say, aircraft carriers?
 
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bustead

Junior Member
Registered Member
escobar said:
Good thread...
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1428346649357684736
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If China is not constructing new silos, then why would the PLARF construct training silos/prototypes in the Jilantai training base? There were a total of 16 new silos in the training area, meaning that the PLARF is planning to train more silo operators than before.

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The new activities in the training area, IMO, is the best evidence for an ongoing silo construction project. It demonstrates the fact that China has the intention to build up its nuclear forces.
 
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