In challenge to US, signs of China expanding its nuke arsenal

WASHINGTON: A major expansion of China's nuclear assets has been uncovered amid signs that suggest that Beijing believes it has arrived on the world stage and is ready to parley on equal terms with the United States.
An American non-proliferation think-tank has identified, through satellite imagery, nearly 120 new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles in a desert near the northwestern city of Yumen in Gansu province in what is possibly a significant bump in its nuclear arsenal.
China is believed to possess a modest stockpile of 250 to 350 nuclear weapons -- only about 1/20th of what the US currently has -- and the building of 120+ new missile silos would represent a historic shift, researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California said in findings first reported in the Washington Post.

The researchers acknowledged the actual number of new missiles intended for those silos is unknown and they could even be decoy silos of the kind the US used to fool or confuse Cold War adversaries. But they said the 119 nearly identical construction sites contain features that mirror those seen at existing launch facilities and new silos suggest a major effort to bolster the credibility of China’s nuclear deterrent.
"If the silos under construction at other sites across China are added to the count, the total comes to about 145 silos under construction. We believe China is expanding its nuclear forces in part to maintain a deterrent that can survive a US first strike in sufficient numbers to defeat US missile defenses,” Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on China’s nuclear arsenal and director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center told the Post. He said the silos are probably intended for a Chinese ICBM known as the DF-41, which can carry multiple warheads and reach the US mainland.
The revelation came on the eve of China's President Xi Jinping address to the nation at a gala on Thursday to celebrate the centennial ruling Communist Party, in which he said Beijing would no longer be bullied by foreign powers and it will not accept “sanctimonious preaching from those who feel they have the right to lecture us."
Anyone attempting to do so would “find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion people,” Xi said, without identifying any adversaries, but amid growing tension with the United States.
Although the US has long believed it had the measure of China's modest nuclear arsenal given its own massive numbers and technological superiority, American planners have in recent years expressed concern over Beijing's “breathtaking expansion” to its arsenal including the addition of new nuclear-weapons-capable submarines to its fleet.
The upgrades to China's nuclear arsenal, or even its posturing in this sphere, comes on the heels of Beijing flexing economic muscle on the strength of manufacturing-driven growth that has rattled the United States. Earlier this week, China, aftter clamping down on the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, launched a "digital yuan," an electronic version of its currency, in what many experts saw as an emerging challenge to the US dollar's status as the world reserve currency.