Is it possible for China to stockpile the largest amount of nuke warheads?

Even the Russia weapons are not as good as the US but US never manage to built up military counter weights against the Russia like US did against China like India, Japan ROK, taiwan. Why?

I think it has to do with the sheer and raw number of nuke warheads the Russia possess. It act as a strong deterent against possible counter weight.

I think if China can build up the sheer number and surpass what the Russia has then those counter weights alliance against China would breakdown.

If China possess 5000 nuke war heads, I bet those India, Japan, ROK, Taiwan wouldn't think off trying to surround China .

The little game would be over.

Right now, China only has few hundred, obviously, that's not enough to command respect.
Like Rodney Dangerfield often said, No respect..

You know how chinese poeple like to command respect from outsiders. So, they better ante up.
Better build up that savage number

The US wasn't exactly unable to built a military counter-weight to the USSR, even nuke wise. I would argue rather the opposite. The fact that the US had lesser warheads and delivery systems, as written down in treaties, wasn't due to the lack of american production capability. The US systems just were more accurate, hence they didn't need to launch three to five warheads in the hope one might hit the target. There's no point in turning tundra into waistland.
Furthermore, those warheads are really expansive to maintain. If there's no operational / strategic need, then way put the financial stress on the country to have a 20x overkill instead of a 15x overkill?

Scratch said:

The US wasn't exactly unable to built a military counter-weight to the USSR, even nuke wise. I would argue rather the opposite. The fact that the US had lesser warheads and delivery systems, as written down in treaties, wasn't due to the lack of american production capability. The US systems just were more accurate, hence they didn't need to launch three to five warheads in the hope one might hit the target. There's no point in turning tundra into waistland.
Furthermore, those warheads are really expansive to maintain. If there's no operational / strategic need, then way put the financial stress on the country to have a 20x overkill instead of a 15x overkill?

Click to expand...

Have you thought why there are no counter weight countries against Russia?

Expanding China's deterrence capability is obviously necessary and Beijing appears to do something about that (DF-31A, JL-2, cruise missiles) although in my POV all this this should already have been done yesterday...

there is no point in keeping a crap load of nukes capable of destroying your enemy 10 times over. Beijing would be pretty stupid to spend all of its money on nukes now as modern warfare is already defined as "local warfare under high-tech conditions"...

i agree with pla101prc
it's back to the basic question of practical needs
yes, nukes = political and strategic weapon
but u need to maintain them, and the threats of a nuke goes both ways: others and self. accidents and broken arrows can cause more problems than not having one. so yea. if u're gonna own one, u need to feed it and keep it safe. not easy to maintain one of those beasts

and plus china aint bent into being a nuclear madman---it's also against chinese grand strategy of being a peaceful nation. and all the diplomatic fuss and what not, none of it is worth it

Well, no countries on earth except the US have thought of possible conventional war with Russia.

Yet Tons of countries try to contain and prepare possible conventional conflict with China, what's the reason??? As China prepare more conventional arms , surroudning coutries are beefing up also, the vicious cycle never end. If CHina holds 5000 nuke warheads, it will end this silly conventional arm race with its neighbors once and for all. F-22 is just a piece of mickymouse.

Well it's because Russia overwhelming nuke warheads other countries are afraid.

If CHina has enough or more nuke warheads than Russia, then it doesn't need to worry about conventional conflict. Russia is not worry.

modern warfare is already defined as "local warfare under high-tech conditions"... That's for sissies. or against weaker opponents.

Nevertheless improving Second Artillery is only a partial remedy for China's woes since Beijing's major deficiency is a complete absence of Public Diplomacy about PRC's own global strategic image.

(e.g. many chinese diplomats are constantly parroting ´Peaceful Rise´ crap like: "Look how our per capita income is only a fifth of UK's, how can China be a superpower?" (Yeah baby, as if only some geeks would know that China's bank net assets are larger than Britain's debts and China's steel mills produce as much steel in five days than their British counterparts in an entire year.))

As a result many even reasonably educated people in the West are completely unaware about China's military capabilities let alone of PLA's nuclear arsenal (...an average citizen in the US, France or Germany would be likely surprised to learn that China actually has nuclear weapons capable to hit their country!).

Of course the reasonings behind the ´Peaceful Rise´ strategy are clear and I do not want to discuss this further but many people in the West would think twice about lavishing the Dalai Lama with honorary citizenships of their capitals (Paris, recently Warsaw) if they had a fair idea of how ugly things could turn out should their governments and elites continue with taunting and confronting China about essential interests. So let them have some fear about their pockets, their job and even a ´little more´ and Mr. ´liberal democrat´ or ´conservative republican´ will be sobered very quickly.

No one want to mess around with Russia because its nuke stockpile is world largest and published & wellknown.

While fans of western armforces are bragging how sophisticated their weapons is such aegis ship and stealth plane against the PLA, Russia is driving around the world with its ugly and outdated Slava-class cold war junky style ship. It knows it doesn't need the state of the art conventional weapon because it carry a major club behind its back.

If China's holding 5000 nuke warheads, India wouldn't try so hard ready to fight a war with China at the border.

Oh man, even little vietnam wants a piece of China. buying kilos and SU-30 to duke it out with CHina.

I think that's fail policy on China's part. They should build the world largest stockpile and publish them. At that point, even if CHina is flying a FC-1 around for its PLAF, opponents would be respect them alot more.

Official Chinese pronouncements have confirmed the existence in Tibet of the biggest uranium reserves in the world.

No wonder the west and its allies are so interested in Tibet.