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

@lilzz:
Actually the US has somewhat more strategic nukes than Russia but regarding tactical weapons Russia is numerically superior.

As for the ´Indian question´ I am also puzzled about Beijing's apparent complacency about this potential threat. Now the Indian Navy has started to build and operate nuclear attack submarines (SSN's) and around 2015 SSBN's will probably emerge so New Delhi will have acquired a secure second strike capability against China by then. May be Indian leaders would move on to strategic parity with China and possibly even further!

Possibly Beijing should indeed worry much less about North Korea than about ambitious rivals like India and an ´unchained´ Japan eagerly using North Korea's nuclear drive as a pretext for turning it's tons of reactor grade Plutonium into thousands of nukes!

but you have to look at the current policy needs. its not the cold war, China and the US dont have to go to war. aside from the current nuclear capabilities, China also has other means of deterring the US or any country in the world from fighting a full scale war with her. so the focus is on winning a limited and localized warfare.

Violet Oboe said:

@lilzz:
Possibly Beijing should indeed worry much less about North Korea than about ambitious rivals like India and an ´unchained´ Japan eagerly using North Korea's nuclear drive as a pretext for turning it's tons of reactor grade Plutonium into thousands of nukes!

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Japan is too small a area to sustain the effect of full out nuke attack, its small island area will get contaminated easily. They know it.

As for India, I don't think they have enough fissionable materials.

Large area is good buffer against possible nuke attack.

Heck, China should renegotiate with Outer Mongolia to get back at least of half of that land. China got robbed on that border settlement. There are only few millions mongolian and they took out such large chunk from china.

pla101prc said:

but you have to look at the current policy needs. its not the cold war, China and the US dont have to go to war. aside from the current nuclear capabilities, China also has other means of deterring the US or any country in the world from fighting a full scale war with her. so the focus is on winning a limited and localized warfare.

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At the same time, CHina should examine its policy why so many little and second /third rated countries are daring to ganging up on her.

Well no one has give me a good explanation why no body dare to touch russia.

You own that big stockpile, there wouldn't be any localized warfare to begin with.

Sure Japan would need a fleet of SSBN's for establishing a stable deterrence relationship with China and that is exactly the reason why currently all their talk about going nuclear is only just talk. But watch out if Tokyo suddenly starts developing a large ´civilian´ sub with nuclear propulsion...

Actually last year there was a moron called Saakashvili (the Georgian president) trying to screw around with Russia about some territory but he got quickly smashed up and his US overlords looked embarrassed the other way and did nothing. So having 7000 nukes is at least not that bad...

Violet Oboe,

I think it's possible for Japan to use diesel subs instead of SSBN. I think Israel's nuclear missile submarines are actually diesel subs??



About the quantity of nuclear weapons. I think as long as China has a large stockpile of weapons grade plutonium (which it probably does)... and technology for advanced missiles (which it does).... and industrial capacity (which it does)... it would not be difficult for China to build 100 DF-31A (or later variants) per year if relations were to sour quickly. Right now relations are not so bad that this is necessary.

Violet Oboe said:

Actually last year there was a moron called Saakashvili (the Georgian president) trying to screw around with Russia about some territory but he got quickly smashed up and his US overlords looked embarrassed the other way and did nothing. So having 7000 nukes is at least not that bad...

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Russia doesn't mess around, if it wants to beat up and teach Georgia a lesson, it just do it.

While China has to think long and hard and still can't make up its mind to teach country like vietnam a lesson for infringing its soverign in South China sea. Vietnam acted coky because US from time to time send messgae like they are to support Vietnam. Failed Policy of China's part.
It keep worrying what US, Japan , AESAN would do.
If it has tons of nuke to back up, who care? just spit on the floor and do what you got to do.

If China continue to build up its conventional force then US and its allies will keep on playing the China containment game.


The only way to end this silly containment game is upend it , trash it and go the other way, going for the bonanza, stockpile its nuke to the fullest.

@Roger:
As a temporary solution an improved Soryu type (そうりゅう, 4200t, AIP) equipped with nuclear tipped cruise missiles could certainly do the job but it would be only the second best alternative compared with a full fledged SSBN.

(Interestingly some sources in Japan are already maintaining that the 5th unit of the Soryu class planned for being laid down in March 2010 will be enlarged further! ...a conventional AIP sub of possibly up to 5000t?, that will be quite interesting!)

lilzz said:

..... Heck, China should renegotiate with Outer Mongolia to get back at least of half of that land. China got robbed on that border settlement. There are only few millions mongolian and they took out such large chunk from china.

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Blame it on the Chinese forefathers who were not aggressive enough. It's ironic that China is now portrayed by some media as a land grabbing bully while she is forced to implement the one-child policy due to land scarcity. Even so, the land that they managed to hold on to, are now even claimed or advertised as 'homelands' or "being native" by some outside parties with the help of some western media. This goes to show that you can't let anyone stay too long in your backyard, or else they will claim the land as their own after a generation or so.

When it comes to the number of nukes China has, and will get, I think there are two camps. One is more "hardline" and does want to increase the number of warheads and delivery vehicles China holds, whereas the other is more "softline" and believes China can obtain superpower status and slip into the world order without causing too much waves, This camp doesnt want China's image to be like Russia's; cold, hard, iron man that will obliterate anyone that dares to mess with him.

And so far it is obvious the "softline" camp is winning. Hence the whole "peaceful rise" and "minimal deterence" principles.

IMO, I would like to see China nuclear capabilities to increase as I belive China actually needs it...for the reasons people here have already pointed out. But never would China need 5000 warheads; a number like 1000 warheads (strategic and tactical) deliverable on SSBNs and ICBMs is more than enough.