I know Hans Kristensen and he is part of the gang in FAS This is the same person who for years underestimate Chinese submarine based on false ONI graph tha can predict the noise level of Type 95 or any other Chinese submarine before they even build it
You can believe anything but here is the quote from international panel of fissile material that is quoted by Hans Kristensen
China’s stockpiles are much smaller than those of Russia and the United States and, at
present, China does not feel secure enough to make public exactly how much less.9 As
with Russia, however, there are new sources of official and unofficial information that
allow for more accurate independent estimates of the histories of China’s plutonium
and HEU production and of its current stocks. Chapter 7, for instance, uses newly released
official information about the early years of China’s nuclear program and media
reports and memoirs to show that China’s plutonium stockpile may be significantly
smaller than many previous estimates.
What you quote would seem to affirm what I, China's own foreign ministry, and estimates the world over have said, that China's nuclear arsenal, whatever its actual size, is not in the same league as the big 2...
So in other word they don't know a thing about the production rate of Chinese fissile material but they are confidence to predict the rate based on "unofficial information" which is again that study done by Jeffrey Lewis way back in 70's
Like they have said, No one knows the exact number of warheads China has outside of top party officials themselves, but there are methods to get into the same ballpark, and 3000 warheads is not even in the same ballpark.
Use your logic ,China advance in blinding speed in every other fields you name it but the "expert" want us to believe that somehow the nuclear stockpile stuck at 300 .
Since when is progress in other fields linked to increases in nuclear stockpile size?
Again this isn't a matter of capability, its a matter of choice. Maintaining 3000 nukes is expensive, and China doesn't need to for it to be an effective deterrent. The nuclear arsenal size of 10's of thousands of nukes by the US and the USSR was not really guided by strategic needs, but by fear and pride (which is pretty much the rationale I see in the arguments i've seen that China needs a 3000 nuclear warhead arsenal... because the US and Russia have more, and we should have as much as the big 2.). If the US and Russia still had tens of thousands of nukes today (lets just say everything else is equal to simplify), would people instead be clamoring for China to have/claim China is building 10's of thousands of nukes instead of 3000, both sizes being in contrast to all public data inside and outside of China? (not credible being studies like that Georgetown study).
The folks at FAS has interest to talk down the number of warhead because if they know that China say has 2000 warhead nobody want to reduce their own stockpile !. In other word no nuclear disarmament . Gee some people cannot connect all the dots.
But this logic hold true regardless if China's nuclear arsenal is 3000 or 300. The US has 3000~ Nukes, Russia has more (off the top of my head). The FAS is focused on more than Chinese nukes.
Well, in my opinion total nuclear disarmament is not possible because of the trust issues you imply in the first place, so that would be another reason why I think you place too much importance on China's nuclear arsenal. The size of China's nuclear arsenal is not the lynchpin of nuclear disarmament. Nuclear disarmament is dead, and even if it was alive, it would be just as put upon by the size of the US and Russian nuclear arsenals.
No the scientist is not Lin Yutai I include it to say that there are like minded people in China who is for nuclear disarmament. enough said
Oh I have no doubts there are people in favor of nuclear disarmament all over the world, just like there are people in favor of true communism
