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

pla101prc

Senior Member
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.

plenty of third rate powers have been messing around with russia in the past decade.
 

lilzz

Banned Idiot
plenty of third rate powers have been messing around with russia in the past decade.

Did NATO and US give arms to Poland, Georgia, Ukraine ready to fight a war with the Russians like US did with Japan, ROK, Taiwan, and India surrounding China?

Not to mention 2/3 of US Navy force stationed in Guam and Japan ready for war?

I don't think so.

US is far more aggressive on containing China than Russia because China doesn't have the nuke numbers to back her up like Russia does.
 

Finn McCool

Captain
Registered Member
Did NATO and US give arms to Poland, Georgia, Ukraine ready to fight a war with the Russians like US did with Japan, ROK, Taiwan, and India surrounding China?

The US has done several large arms sales to Poland over the last few years, selling F-16s and Patriots among other things, and based missile defense interceptors in Poland. We sent troops to actually train Georgia's military and a lot of their infantry kit and stuff is US or NATO provided. On balance, I would say that the US has done more to make Russia feel insecure about than China. You don't hear Obama crowing about how Russia is our most important bilateral relationship. It's China.
 

lilzz

Banned Idiot
The US has done several large arms sales to Poland over the last few years, selling F-16s and Patriots among other things, and based missile defense interceptors in Poland. We sent troops to actually train Georgia's military and a lot of their infantry kit and stuff is US or NATO provided. On balance, I would say that the US has done more to make Russia feel insecure about than China. You don't hear Obama crowing about how Russia is our most important bilateral relationship. It's China.

of course Obama would do that because he like to butter up its financer on the surface.

Well that's because every president knows the role of China to continue to buy US treasury and to finance US military.

F-16 and Patriots are defensive in nature.

Where's US state-of -art offensive weapons such F-22, Virginia class sub, and B-2 bomber at, yup, pacific theater, near Guam and Okinawa.

Did US sell any Aegis ships to Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia, No but it did to Japan, ROK, and now very soon, India. And it also plan to sell Tomahawk cruise missile to India too.

Basically, US's goal is clear, form an overwhelming alliance to box China inland in a cage, while at the same time, China has work hard and keep buying US treasury to finance its budget, like a slave, work hard and box in a cage.

So, for China to break free this cage and end this endless conventional arm race with its neighbors, pawns of US, is to go nuke build up. China is not afraid Japan going nuke, its small surface area doesn't have enough buffer for nuke fallout. Likewise for ROK and Taiwan.
 
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adeptitus

Captain
VIP Professional
Um, the cold war is over.

The only failed strategy in terms of nuclear weapons is that the Big 5 (UK, France, USSR, PRC, USA) failed to agree to prevent other states from acquiring nukes by whatever the means. If they had put aside their own selfish political gains, there wouldn't be a nuclear Israel, India, Pakistan, & North Korea.

The US has, at the minimum, kept countries within its sphere in East Asia from building nuclear weapons. Thus, today there is no nuclear armed Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. This actually works to PRC's strategic advantage and I believe China's leadership appreciates it.

As for improving PRC's nuclear deterrence, I'd point to the 094 SSBN and DF-31A ICBM. Both are relatively new and "mobile" systems. A few dozen SLBM's and ICBM's will wipe out every major city in a medium sized country. How many do you need? Want to blow up the world?
 

duskylim

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Dear Sirs:

Of all the actual and potential nuclear powers, China is not yet in a position to drastically increase its nuclear weapons stockpile, at least not without significant investment in its nuclear weapons materials infrastructure.

Of all the countries with potential to do so, Japan must take first place and also, to a certain extent, South Korea. Both these countries have much more potential to develop and greatly expand their nuclear weaponry than suspected nuclear powers like Israel or declared nuclear powers like India and Pakistan.

Why so? Mainly due to the fact that Japan and South Korea have many nuclear power reactors operating.

One of the by-products of operation of nuclear reactors is the production of plutonium, hence if you have many operating reactors, then you have potentially a lot of plutonium available.

Only recently has China been operating large nuclear power reactors (11 at last count, I believe) hence only recently has it had those potential plutonium resources available.

Of course this is a simplistic assessment, mainly due to the following:

1) the plutonium produced in a power reactor is not ideal for nuclear weapons, because it contains significant amounts of Plutonium-240,

2) power reactors are to a certain extent designed to use the plutonium formed as part of their fuel, thus they burn-up a large part of your potential weapons material,

3) extracting the plutonium will require frequent stopping and restarting of the reactor, as well as frequent removal and shuffling of the fuel elements which renders it's operation as a power reactor uneconomical, even in natural to low-enriched uranium designs with low neutron-capture cross-section moderators (i.e. the British Magnox or the Canadian CANDU designs).

Also it predicates that all this can be done despite IAEA safeguards against it.

Here India serves as a good example of materials diversion. Its power reactors are all derivatives of the donated Canadian CANDU prototype using natural uranium as a fuel and heavy water (deuterium oxide) as the moderator.

In power plant terminology we have a figure we call the plant's Availability - that is, the amount of time (including maintenance periods) it is available to produce electric power over one year.

In France the figure is over 80%, for Japan the US and South Korea its around 70%-80%, but for India, it is between 10% and 20%.

Clearly the Indian reactors are being started and stopped frequently, for whatever reasons - I leave it to you to draw the necessary conclusions.

Alternatively the main nuclear materials source for those countries who operate light-water, (pressurized water or boiling-water reactors) like Japan and South Korea are the spent fuel rods extracted from the core - this is typically done during maintenance and refueling - once every 3 or so years.

The spent rods are usually stored in a cooling pond or pool next to the reactor building, where they are 'temporarily' stored until a viable form of disposal is developed. This is necessary as the spent rods are still 'hot' - radioactive.

It would not be difficult for either country to take out a portion of the spent rods and reprocess them to extract the plutonium and uranium in them, and then to put them back in the pool as if nothing happened.

This way they could build up significant amounts of weapons material.

For China to undertake a large build-up of nuclear weaponry will require all this and more.

Still there is no real strategic need for more than a few hundred to a thousand warheads.

China's greater need is for more reliable, longer-ranged, MIRVed ballistic missiles.

Best Regards,

Dusky Lim
 

flyzies

Junior Member
Basically, US's goal is clear, form an overwhelming alliance to box China inland in a cage, while at the same time, China has work hard and keep buying US treasury to finance its budget, like a slave, work hard and box in a cage.

If anything, the opposite is happening. China and US are getting more and even more intertwined...everyone in power in China and US knows they cannot survive without each other.

Alot of poeple dont realise this; but China buys US T-Bills not because theyre forced by US to do so but of neccesity. Buy T-Bills means keeping China's exports flowing, and as China's economy is still heavily dependent on exports, it indirectly keeps China's economy going.

CCP has realised the vulnerability of this, and has already taken steps to address it...like setting up a whole series of currency swaps with trading partners so they could settle trade in Yuan instead of US dollars, and taking steps of slowly make the Yuan fully convertable.

The best thing China can do in face of being "boxed in" by US's allies is to keep advancing militarily herself...which China is doing.
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Where's US state-of -art offensive weapons such F-22, Virginia class sub, and B-2 bomber at, yup, pacific theater, near Guam and Okinawa.

F-22s are at Langley AFB in Virgina. Also Elmendorf in Alaska. They make deployments to Guam and Okinawa.

Virginia Class subs are based in;

USS Virginia (SSN 774), Groton, CT
USS Texas (SSN 775), Groton, CT
USS Hawaii (SSN 776), Pearl Harbor, HI
USS North Carolina (SSN 777) - Groton, CT
USS New Hampshire (SSN 778) - Groton, CT

Only one in Hawaii..

And B-2 Bombers are based in Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. They do make deployments to Guam.

Did US sell any Aegis ships to Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia,

No.

but it did to Japan, ROK, and now very soon, India.

Not true. Name a single Aegis ship the US built and sent to one of these countries. That would be zero. The US did sell a large portion of the Aegis technology to Japan and S. Korea.

Question..When shall India build a Aegis ship?? This is the first I've heard of this.
 

Scratch

Captain
Lizz, have you had a bad nightmare? How comes you think China's annihilation is imminent? Where are the eveil countries surrounding China and gearing up to attack it. I would argue that China is building up it's military capabilities no slower then maybe even it's neighbours combined.
What's the point of having 5000nukes and waving at everybody all day long. Countries like Japan, SK or India could just take exactly that as a reason to built up a domestic nuclear potential. Anyway, a nuclear strike on Japan or SK might pretty well draw the US into the conflict, and then you do have MAD.

There's been a lot of small countries that had some kind of confrontation with Russia latey, despite the nuclear arsenal. What did you exspect Russia to do? Initiate a decissive nuclear first strike? No way they could do that and get away with it. Same is true for China.

F-16 (to Poland) aren't exactly just defensive. And the AEGIS and Virgina thing. Japan bought them because they're an island nation that has use for those. What would Poland what with Arleigh Burkes anyway? If there's four to five of them in the baltic sea, that sea is cramped anyway making the ships useless as they have no room to maneuver.
And the F-22 isn't sold to anyone for that matter.

What's the matter with India. True, they start to operate one SSN now. China has had multiple for years. As well as SSBNs.
 

Pointblank

Senior Member
Lizz, have you had a bad nightmare? How comes you think China's annihilation is imminent? Where are the eveil countries surrounding China and gearing up to attack it. I would argue that China is building up it's military capabilities no slower then maybe even it's neighbours combined.
What's the point of having 5000nukes and waving at everybody all day long. Countries like Japan, SK or India could just take exactly that as a reason to built up a domestic nuclear potential. Anyway, a nuclear strike on Japan or SK might pretty well draw the US into the conflict, and then you do have MAD.

There's been a lot of small countries that had some kind of confrontation with Russia latey, despite the nuclear arsenal. What did you exspect Russia to do? Initiate a decissive nuclear first strike? No way they could do that and get away with it. Same is true for China.

F-16 (to Poland) aren't exactly just defensive. And the AEGIS and Virgina thing. Japan bought them because they're an island nation that has use for those. What would Poland what with Arleigh Burkes anyway? If there's four to five of them in the baltic sea, that sea is cramped anyway making the ships useless as they have no room to maneuver.
And the F-22 isn't sold to anyone for that matter.

What's the matter with India. True, they start to operate one SSN now. China has had multiple for years. As well as SSBNs.

Indeed, the Russians have found that focusing on their nuclear deterrent for the past couple of decades isn't all that useful as shown by the difficulties their conventional forces have experienced in Chechnya.
 
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