US experts cut by half size estimate of China nuclear arsenal
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WASHINGTON, May 3 (AFP) May 03, 2006
China's nuclear arsenal is about half the size previously estimated by US experts, even as the Asian giant modernizes its atomic forces in a secret fashion, a new study shows.
China's nuclear stockpile appears to have leveled out at about 200 warheads compared with 400 as previously estimated, said Robert Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists in a study published in the latest issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
"We estimate that China deploys approximately 130 nuclear warheads for delivery by land-based missiles, sea-based missiles and bombers. Additional warheads are thought to be in storage for a total stockpile of approximately 200 warheads," they said.
Norris told AFP in an interview that the previous estimates were based on assumptions during the Cold War based on alleged Chinese development of so-called tactical nuclear delivery systems.
"More recently we decided to see if could find evidence of what happened to that. We now see that probably never happened and if it did happen, they had withdrawn them because the reason for them is gone," he explained.
"This was a rather long process that we had to deal with -- the Chinese have been very good at keeping secrets and they are not transparent about their nuclear arsenal," Norris said.
The experts used US government intelligence documents and some Chinese statements to arrive at the new figure.
Past US predictions about China's nuclear arsenal "have repeatedly proven to be highly unreliable," they said in the report.
The CIA's latest prediction of a "several-fold" increase in Chinese warheads deployed "primarily" against the United States is hardly a firm estimate, they said.
The Pentagon had predicted in 2002, 2003 and 2004 that the number of Chinese nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the United States "could increase to about 30 by 2005 and may reach up to 60 by 2010."
But only 20 of China's 200 nuclear warheads could reach the United States, the experts said.
"Even if an increase occurs, the total Chinese nuclear stockpile would rise only moderately because warheads on older liquid-fueled missiles will have to be phased out," they explained.
China has kept the composition and size of nuclear warheads in its stockpile ambiguous amid repeated calls by the United States to make its military budget more transparent.
But Norris said that the Chinese nuclear arsenal was a pale shadow of the American size of 10,000 warheads.
By 2012, under current plans, the United States has committed to reduce it to 6,000 warheads.
"The Chinese will have -- its very hard to say -- may be 300 or 400 (warheads) in six years' time but they have never decided -- wisely I think -- to enter into an arms race with the United States," Norris said.
"It's just not their way."
Norris also said that there was a lobby in Washington that tried to use the Chinese as a potential US threat in the future to boost the American military capability.
"I think they exaggerate the dimensions, they use it as a rationale for US military programs, as a matter of fact, and even if we project into the future, a rise in Chinese arsenal could happen but it would never be very, very large compared to the US arsenal," he said.
