Debate over China’s nuclear policy

ANALYSIS: Questions remain on China’s nuclear stance, Taipei Times, By J. Michael Cole / Staff Reporter, 23 May 11, A recent report on China’s nuclear weapons capabilities has re-ignited debate on the country’s nuclear policy and the overall lack of transparency surrounding the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

In its China’s Nuclear Arsenal: Status and Evolution briefing paper released on Monday last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) said the Chinese government had no intention of reaching numerical parity with the US on nuclear weapons and did not have the nuclear material to do so.

Released to coincide with the arrival of PLA Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde (陳炳德) in Washington, the paper said recent advances in China’s nuclear forces were intended to ensure the arsenal would survive an attack and preserve China’s ability to retaliate.

Beijing was not focused on increasing its offensive capability, it said, and its relatively small nuclear arsenal is solely for deterrent purposes…….

the report has been met with some skepticism by defense experts,……despite China’s declared “no first use” policy, there was “ample literature” and “PLA statements” pointing to a substantial coercive mission for China’s nuclear forces — especially as concerns a potential Taiwan contingency. It is believed by many experts that under certain circumstances, for example, China could detonate a nuclear device at high altitude to disrupt Taiwan’s electronic capabilities or destroy those of a carrier battle group at sea.

Beyond a lack of transparency, which has haunted China’s relations with other countries on every aspect of its military, another problem with bean counting China’s nuclear arsenal derives from the metrics used for that assessment. As another specialist on the Chinese military told the Taipei Times, counting delivery vehicles alone is a limited basis for assessing the actual number of warheads…….

there reportedly has been substantial tunneling work at Qinling in the past decade and throughout the Second Artillery as a whole. It remains unclear, however, whether warhead depot-related tunneling work is for expansion purposes — in other words, to store more warheads — or just refurbishment.

Also not mentioned in the report is Chinese potential for nuclear capable land attack cruise missiles.

Another point of disagreement lies in the report’s contention that the DF-31 and DF-31A solid-fuel, long-range missiles China has -begun deploying in recent years to complement liquid-fuel missiles designed in the 1970s “cannot carry more than one of China’s smallest warheads.”……

. Estimates of the size of China’s plutonium stock, the report says, are uncertain, but imply that the number of new warheads that could be produced from that stock would be limited, probably from “very few” to a “several hundred.”

However, while China has halted production of military plutonium, it has not declared an official moratorium. And while Beijing officially supports negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty that would ban all future production for weapons use, Chinese concerns about US missile defense systems have diminished its enthusiasm for the treaty, the UCS report said.

There are also reports that China recently began operating a pilot plant for reprocessing spent fuel rods from civilian nuclear reactors and operates an experimental fast breeder reactor. If it chose, China could divert plutonium from those two plants for weaponization, it said.

“How do we know there does not exist a separate underground PLA network for fissile production that we would likely never see? There is also the matter of the PLA deciding to make warheads with smaller amounts of fissile material, meaning any fixed amount can result in a greater number of warheads,” Fisher said.

Yet another factor could be technologies that enable more efficient use of available fissile material, he said, adding that lack of current, detailed information on China Academy of Engineering Physics research institutes and factories that could be actively involved in warhead-related work was another blind spot….

ANALYSIS: Questions remain on China’s nuclear stance – Taipei Times