China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread

[manqiangrexue]

One thing I notice about forum users here is that nobody suggests detailed plans to deal with contingencies that may arise. Just for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of an American military policy advisor or think tanker who wants to thwart China's future goals and objectives. What policies or actions could the USA take to really, REALLY interfere or block China? What would be a worst case scenario for China?

My own suggestion is that the most damaging set of actions short of actual war against China would be to proliferate nuclear weapons to American allies in east Asia, and set up a military alliance similar to NATO. Hear me out.

Imagine if the US secretly exited the non-proliferation treaty by covertly arming Japan, south Korea, and Taiwan with nuclear submarines. They could do this covertly by cross training submarine crews in Guam, Hawaii, and San Diego. Japan, Korea, and Taiwan already have submarines in service but these crews would need extra training to operate nuclear armed nuclear subs. Then the US, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan conduct SSBN inert missile launches of Tridents or nuclear armed Tomahawks from fast attack subs. China would see these launches on radar and also be notified shortly ahead of time that there will be missile drills conducted between the first and second island chain, out deep in the pacific.

If China were confronted by such a test with no warning, what would the response be? What actions would/could China take if suddenly Japan, Korea, and Taiwan had survivable second strike nuclear capabilities with hundreds of warheads? It is not out of the question to think that the US might actually do something along these lines, especially now that the new silos in Gansu are being built. Is it out of the question that the USA might respond to Chinas arsenal increase by proliferating nukes among its allies? Or will the USA just do nothing at all while China builds several thousand more warheads over the next decade?

The US has already crossed multiple red lines by sending multiple aircraft with US senators to Taiwan, and announced that there are already dozens of US troops stationed on Taiwan. All of this since June this year. The only two remaining red lines are (1) Nuclear armed Taiwan (2) Public declaration of Independence by Taiwan.

So tell me, how would China respond to such geopolitical actions? I can't think of any actions China could take which would have favorable outcomes for China.

It is important to recognize which actions need to be countered and which actions do not. First of all, a nuclear Asia doesn't change China's calculus; none of them want nuclear war with China.

That said, in regards to the US sending senators and trainers to the ROC, this is precisely the type of action that doesn't need to be specifically addressed because this is just one in a series of actions by the US recently to antagonize China because it has run out of cards to do real damage. All of the alliances and treaties and announcements (AUKUS, etc...) are for show; if they were effective, the actions within them could be done without the fanfare and effective actions are rarely loudly announced because they can intrinsically serve their purpose and so no noise is needed to pretend to serve that purpose. China's red line isn't any set of senators or trainers; there are almost 20 countries in the world that recognize the ROC over the PRC and they've not incurred any red line retaliation. China's red line is that the ROC cannot declare independence, and when China is ready with the power balance further in its favor, the red line can be turned into a reunification ultimatum. For now, as the US helplessly dances with words to peeve China because it has already frustrated all of its means to actually harm China, China's reaction to everything should only be one thing: to make itself stronger by building its economy, technology, and military. This is the only action that the US really fears. People who are frantically yelling at you aren't scared of you yelling back at them; they're scared of you continuing to do the things that caused them to curse you in the first place and in this case, it's China growing too strong.

 

[Hendrik_2000]

If Japan decided going nuclear was the correct policy, her existing massive stockpile of fissile material, long and deep nuclear science infrastructure would allow her to break out quickly and build a very large stockpile of several thousand nuclear weapons, larger than the stockpile currently in service with either the US or Russia without any american assistance. Her solid fuelled satellite launch rockets have been described as virtual clones of the decommissioned MX missiles, She would also likely also be able to build her own nuclear powered submarines without out outside Help much sooner than Australia could get her american and British supplied nuclear submarines that were promised as part of Aukus months ago, if indeee Australia ever does developed the ability to support them and then get the actual submarines.

The fact is US may absolutely not wish to be seen arming Japan with nuclear weapons, but there is no doubt the US would be overjoyed if Japan were to decide to nuclearization it’s military today.

the barrier to a nuclear Japan is not the US, it is Japan. But although Japan has not chosen to turn the screw driver the final turn to actually go nuclear, her defence industry, satellite launch industry and civilian nuclear industry policy since the 1970s had clearly been geared towards keep herself just one screw driver turn away a massive break out as a major nuclear weapon power With ready made strategic missile capability.

Japanese constitution forbid nuclear weapon and Japanese people won't tolerate nuclear weapon. Once was enough another try at militarism will be suicidal for Japan.

japan can't afford competition with China in conventional weapon at 4 X Japanese defense budget China can crank all sort of weapon. And that is at 1.5 % of Chinese GDP. China can easily hike it to 2 or 3 % with no problem. Japan ceased to be factor in Asia. BTW Chinese GDP is 4 X larger than Japan!

Naha in Okinawa is only less than 800 miles within reached of Chinese Wl 600 rocket

PLA WS-600L hypersonic missile system: container-based, a universal launch platform, a game changer​

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Nov 13, 2021

 

[Insignius]

Japan is literally too poor to spend on their military or any notional nuclear weapons.

Holy hell, people, stop thinking its still the 80s Japan. Japan is currently a country that survives by eating away the savings from their boom years. It's a nation where prostitution ("papakatsu" - latching on a sugar-daddy) has become a viable career choice for its women these days as oppossed to importing from poorer SEA nations during its better economic times, and where their own MoD has confirmed that financial problems has prevented them from achieving what they wanted to do for years: upgrading their aging F-15J fleet to semi-modern standards aka. giving them all Fox-3 ability (yeah imagine). Also, its domestic industries are very very inefficient, very very corrupt and very very non-imaginative/uninnovative due to decades of being pampered by an outright socialist closed-off economic system that hates foreign investments and promotes people based on nepotism and not by merit.

So, puh-lease.
They are a threat to themselves and will likely stop being a rich 1st world country by 2040s.

The entire notion of Japanese nukes is laughable. Just as laughable like Taiwanese or South Korea nukes. All these nations exist to be vassals to one or the other great power.

 

[gelgoog]

Japan is literally too poor to spend on their military or any notional nuclear weapons.

Japan has roughly twice the population of the UK, or France. It also has roughly twice the size of the economy.
Their military is already huge. It just lacks certain categories of weapons for historical and political reasons.

Holy hell, people, stop thinking its still the 80s Japan. Japan is currently a country that survives by eating away the savings from their boom years. It's a nation where prostitution ("papakatsu" - latching on a sugar-daddy) has become a viable career choice for its women these days as oppossed to importing from poorer SEA nations during its better economic times, and where their own MoD has confirmed that financial problems has prevented them from achieving what they wanted to do for years: upgrading their aging F-15J fleet to semi-modern standards aka. giving them all Fox-3 ability (yeah imagine).

Japan, as a US vassal, had to buy the F-35. That is eating their Air Force budget.

Japan already has that basic technology on the F-2 fighter (AESA radar and AAM-4B missile). They only aren't putting it in the F-15J for political reasons which mean the F-35 was made a priority despite being suboptimal for Japan. For similar political reasons a US designed radar is being proposed for the F-15J which is not in the best interests of Japan either.

Also, its domestic industries are very very inefficient, very very corrupt and very very non-imaginative/uninnovative due to decades of being pampered by an outright socialist closed-off economic system that hates foreign investments and promotes people based on nepotism and not by merit.

They still manage to make the necessary products as long as they get funded to do so. Their "closed-off economic system" worked perfectly fine. It is the modern stock price oriented, MBA led, Japanese enterprise which is the problem in my opinion. For example Toshiba bought US Westinghouse, supposedly to get their clients for the AP1000, and ended up in deep shit as a result.

So, puh-lease.
They are a threat to themselves and will likely stop being a rich 1st world country by 2040s.

The entire notion of Japanese nukes is laughable. Just as laughable like Taiwanese or South Korea nukes. All these nations exist to be vassals to one or the other great power.

Is it? The South Korean KSS-III submarine already has VLS cells and cruise missile and ballistic missile capability. If South Korea can do something like that what makes you think Japan can't?
Japan also has a relatively large nuclear industry still and Toshiba used to have plans to make small nuclear reactors. In theory they could even make nuclear attack or strategic submarines if they wanted to. If France can do it so can Japan.

As for Japan having some sort of allergy to nuclear weapons or something. You have to remember the generation which lived through WW2 is either dead or going to pasture soon. The newer generations might just choose to get the nuclear weapons to prevent a conventional conflict in the first place.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

You are probably right, but you cannot deny that this recent public schizophrenia about the hypersonic missiles smells a lot about scaremongering in order to get more budget.

For the past month we have a daily barrage of such news. It is clear to me that their primary purpose is to ask for more money, and not for having educated discussions about the matter

It doesn't matter how much more dollars they get at this point though. They're already going all out in terms of physical production and any more dollars just causes price inflation.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

If Japan decided going nuclear was the correct policy, her existing massive stockpile of fissile material, long and deep nuclear science infrastructure would allow her to break out quickly and build a very large stockpile of several thousand nuclear weapons, larger than the stockpile currently in service with either the US or Russia without any american assistance. Her solid fuelled satellite launch rockets have been described as virtual clones of the decommissioned MX missiles, She would also likely also be able to build her own nuclear powered submarines without out outside Help much sooner than Australia could get her american and British supplied nuclear submarines that were promised as part of Aukus months ago, if indeee Australia ever does developed the ability to support them and then get the actual submarines.

The fact is US may absolutely not wish to be seen arming Japan with nuclear weapons, but there is no doubt the US would be overjoyed if Japan were to decide to nuclearization it’s military today.

the barrier to a nuclear Japan is not the US, it is Japan. But although Japan has not chosen to turn the screw driver the final turn to actually go nuclear, her defence industry, satellite launch industry and civilian nuclear industry policy since the 1970s had clearly been geared towards keep herself just one screw driver turn away a massive break out as a major nuclear weapon power With ready made strategic missile capability.

Nope. Japan's Pu stockpile is Pu-240 contaminated,

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90 days is uneconomical and easily detected as a sure sign of a weapons program since the only possible use is pure Pu-239 synthesis. Separation of Pu-240 from Pu-239 is far more difficult (essentially impossible) than separation of U-235 from U-238 which is already incredibly difficult.

Their solid fueled rockets also need an open air support facility. There is no evidence their rockets can be launched from arbitrary locations. There is no evidence that they are even practicing for that since they launch a very limited number of rockets every year vs. 40+ orbital launches for China and 100+ missile launches.

 

[Panda Express]

Nobody has responded yet with a feasible way for China to overcome the problems posed by nuclear armed neighbors. We must keep in mind that controlled proliferation among allies is exactly what the USA did during the first Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the current president of the USA was a senator back then. The USA gave Britain nukes and armed many of its allies with nuclear weapons in ways that still go unmentioned to this day. Did anyone here know that the Canadian air force had nuclear air to air rockets provided by the USA? Well they did, and many other European countries has lots of tactical and theater level nukes ready to pop off on short notice. This strategy was a pretty solid deterrent for the USSR.

The main point of proliferating among allies would be to deter China from taking military action against Taiwan. It is all about Taiwan, always has been. Now that China is overhauling its nuclear forces, I firmly believe we will see nuclear east Asia in the near future. So we must contend with the probability that Taiwan will have nuclear forces and/or be in a much tighter alliance with the USA, Japan, Australia, and maybe Korea. They may choose to go with nuclear brinkmanship like they did with the USSR, especially as China continues to develop overwhelming conventional military capabilities. I think this is the most likely outcome if China does not take Taiwan in the very near future.

China's red line is that the ROC cannot declare independence, and when China is ready with the power balance further in its favor, the red line can be turned into a reunification ultimatum.

My point is precisely that China cannot issue this ultimatum if Taiwan has nukes. Especially if Taiwan has enough nukes (and tactical nukes) to respond to Chinese conventional forces with nukes. There is no good solution here that I can think of. People jump to MAD as a conclusion but that is still a failure and a no-win situation. So, how would China deal with a nuclear armed Taiwan?

 

[ougoah]

Nobody has responded yet with a feasible way for China to overcome the problems posed by nuclear armed neighbors. We must keep in mind that controlled proliferation among allies is exactly what the USA did during the first Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the current president of the USA was a senator back then. The USA gave Britain nukes and armed many of its allies with nuclear weapons in ways that still go unmentioned to this day. Did anyone here know that the Canadian air force had nuclear air to air rockets provided by the USA? Well they did, and many other European countries has lots of tactical and theater level nukes ready to pop off on short notice. This strategy was a pretty solid deterrent for the USSR.

The main point of proliferating among allies would be to deter China from taking military action against Taiwan. It is all about Taiwan, always has been. Now that China is overhauling its nuclear forces, I firmly believe we will see nuclear east Asia in the near future. So we must contend with the probability that Taiwan will have nuclear forces and/or be in a much tighter alliance with the USA, Japan, Australia, and maybe Korea. They may choose to go with nuclear brinkmanship like they did with the USSR, especially as China continues to develop overwhelming conventional military capabilities. I think this is the most likely outcome if China does not take Taiwan in the very near future.


My point is precisely that China cannot issue this ultimatum if Taiwan has nukes. Especially if Taiwan has enough nukes (and tactical nukes) to respond to Chinese conventional forces with nukes. There is no good solution here that I can think of. People jump to MAD as a conclusion but that is still a failure and a no-win situation. So, how would China deal with a nuclear armed Taiwan?

This post and the one along this line you've made pages back have been ignoring the biggest reason why these nations don't pursue nuclear weapons even if they have some desire to and if encouraged by the US.

You got it right in saying that the US would very happily encourage East Asian nuclear build up.

The problem though is these very nations do not wish to become nuclear targets. They are not at the moment but if they pursue nuclear programs, they will. If it is for secondary strike, why would they bother? China has no intention on performing a first strike on Japan at all, let alone South Korea or Taiwan (much lower, in fact non-existent desire for first strike). China has never and will likely never use nuclear threats on others unlike the US have done many times in history. So if you are a Japanese civilian or PM or Taiwanese or South Korean, why would you want to build nukes?

Have you honestly thought this through before you ask members why this forum hasn't entertained the most obvious harebrained idea?

Yes you got half of it right but completely ignored the more important second half.

Here it is again... Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan don't develop nukes, despite having the ability to, because they do not want to become targets for preliminary strike before they manage to develop them or build enough of them OR for nuclear strike if things go down.

At the moment, in the hypothetical of PRC reunifying militarily with Taiwan, no one is getting nuked or launching nukes BUT if Japan is dumb enough to pursue that program, Japan is not only getting attacked and invaded but nuked, many, many times by China.

Care to guess why Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan despite having decades long technical ability to produce nukes, do not?

While you were too busy thinking only from the US perspective, have you bothered to stop and think what the people living in this region want? No amount of US encouragement and underhanded political tactics can get these three to paint nuclear targets on their own heads without any strategic gain in doing so.

 

[Panda Express]

This post and the one along this line you've made pages back have been ignoring the biggest reason why these nations don't pursue nuclear weapons even if they have some desire to and if encouraged by the US.

You got it right in saying that the US would very happily encourage East Asian nuclear build up.

The problem though is these very nations do not wish to become nuclear targets. They are not at the moment but if they pursue nuclear programs, they will. If it is for secondary strike, why would they bother? China has no intention on performing a first strike on Japan at all, let alone South Korea or Taiwan (much lower, in fact non-existent desire for first strike). China has never and will likely never use nuclear threats on others unlike the US have done many times in history. So if you are a Japanese civilian or PM or Taiwanese or South Korean, why would you want to build nukes?

Have you honestly thought this through before you ask members why this forum hasn't entertained the most obvious harebrained idea?

Yes you got half of it right but completely ignored the more important second half.

Here it is again... Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan don't develop nukes, despite having the ability to, because they do not want to become targets for preliminary strike before they manage to develop them or build enough of them OR for nuclear strike if things go down.

At the moment, in the hypothetical of PRC reunifying militarily with Taiwan, no one is getting nuked or launching nukes BUT if Japan is dumb enough to pursue that program, Japan is not only getting attacked and invaded but nuked, many, many times by China.

Care to guess why Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan despite having decades long technical ability to produce nukes, do not?

While you were too busy thinking only from the US perspective, have you bothered to stop and think what the people living in this region want? No amount of US encouragement and underhanded political tactics can get these three to paint nuclear targets on their own heads without any strategic gain in doing so.

I disagree with your assessment of this subject. Both Korea and Taiwan have had nuclear programs in the past and were ready for nuclear breakout. The US administrations at the time shut down their nuclear programs. Out of these three, only Japan has a population that is thoroughly anti-nuclear. Yet the Japanese population is moving towards the right, and anti-China sentiment is increasing. You should not consider it a hairbrained idea that US allies will remain unarmed while China increases its arsenal.

I'd point out the recent interview on Australian ABC news where

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Australia would become a target for a nuclear first strike if it went forward with the AUKUS deal. This interview was widely interpreted as a nuclear threat by China among the Australian population, who have now doubled down on anti-China policy and have committed to intervention in Taiwan.

Your statement that Japan will get nuked many, many times by China if it intervenes in Taiwan is exactly the reason why the right-wing Japanese military would want second strike nukes. Given Japans fairly large submarine fleet, they would likely opt for a sub-only nuclear deployment, which is by nature a second strike capability. The PLA would not be able to wipe out Japan's submarine fleet in a first strike, whether nukes are used or not, unless the PLAN builds so many nuclear submarines that it can tail all Japanese subs, all the time, even within Japanese territorial waters.

If you haven't noticed, the US has been pumping out anti-China, pro-Taiwan independence propaganda for more than a year now. Not only for US audiences, we can see from polling numbers that public opinion towards China has started to become very negative in the last few years in the US, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. You should not underestimate the ability of the US to shape public opinion both within the USA and in US allies. Nobody is better at propaganda. The strategic gain from having a survivable second strike capability is very compelling for deterrence, especially since China it not willing to enter arms control agreements.

 

[Vincent Ang]

I disagree with your assessment of this subject. Both Korea and Taiwan have had nuclear programs in the past and were ready for nuclear breakout. The US administrations at the time shut down their nuclear programs. Out of these three, only Japan has a population that is thoroughly anti-nuclear. Yet the Japanese population is moving towards the right, and anti-China sentiment is increasing. You should not consider it a hairbrained idea that US allies will remain unarmed while China increases its arsenal.

I'd point out the recent interview on Australian ABC news where

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Australia would become a target for a nuclear first strike if it went forward with the AUKUS deal. This interview was widely interpreted as a nuclear threat by China among the Australian population, who have now doubled down on anti-China policy and have committed to intervention in Taiwan.

Your statement that Japan will get nuked many, many times by China if it intervenes in Taiwan is exactly the reason why the right-wing Japanese military would want second strike nukes. Given Japans fairly large submarine fleet, they would likely opt for a sub-only nuclear deployment, which is by nature a second strike capability. The PLA would not be able to wipe out Japan's submarine fleet in a first strike, whether nukes are used or not, unless the PLAN builds so many nuclear submarines that it can tail all Japanese subs, all the time, even within Japanese territorial waters.

If you haven't noticed, the US has been pumping out anti-China, pro-Taiwan independence propaganda for more than a year now. Not only for US audiences, we can see from polling numbers that public opinion towards China has started to become very negative in the last few years in the US, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. You should not underestimate the ability of the US to shape public opinion both within the USA and in US allies. Nobody is better at propaganda. The strategic gain from having a survivable second strike capability is very compelling for deterrence, especially since China it not willing to enter arms control agreements.

The Koreans, Taiwanese and Japanese are a lot smarter than you think. They pander to the Yanks so as to get economic benefits. Yiu think the people in these three areas do not see how the US abandoned their longest war and ran with their tails between their legs.