China’s Nuclear Build and Economic Hegemonic Goals

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By Peter Huessy, President of Geo-Strategic Analysis, Potomac, Maryland

Security news often highlights what nuclear armed missiles and bombers are being built and deployed by adversaries and enemies of the United States. Les Aspin, the former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and later Secretary of Defense would often point out that while the “military bean counting” exercise was useful, he always thought the real important news was the “why” rather than the “what”, not “how many” but “what for?” ”.

3500 Warheads

The big public news over the past two months has been the “what” of Chinese nuclear building. This breakout buildup of the Chinese nuclear arsenal, with some 350 new ICBM silos being discovered under construction in four separate missile field areas was indeed newsworthy. The missile that would be placed in the silos is the Chinese DF-41 which can carry 10 warheads, implying a deployment of 3500 warheads, some 270% of the entire US day to day deployment of nuclear systems, and some 95% of the entire US nuclear arsenal including our reserve stockpile. Adding in the estimated 300-340 nuclear warheads already deployed by China, and the news is that China has the capacity in the next 2-4 years to have a nuclear arsenal larger than that of the United States.

However, startling as such news is, the real interesting question is what is China going to do with such an arsenal if it is built? At a recent Nuclear Triad Symposium in Washington on September 24^th, a number of top scholars who are specialists in examining Chinese strategy and security objectives gave their take on exactly the question: what is China up to?

An article of faith during the huge expansion of US and China trade was that the PRC would have a greater and greater incentive to have normal and peaceful relations with the US, its major trading partner. A companion assessment was that as China expands its middle class and moves up economically and out of the developing world, it would moderate its internal communist leanings as well as accept the prevailing international liberal order of things.

Premier Military, Political and Economic Hegemon

As Michael Pillsbury wrote in The 100 Year Marathon, China did not move in the direction the conventional wisdom assumed would be the case. The Chinese vision was to become the world’s premier military, political and economic hegemon by 2049, the 100-year anniversary of the cofounding of the Peoples Republic of China. And to do so as a strong communist nation, governed by totalitarian guideposts.