US has raised the alarm about China’s potential build-up of its nuclear forces with fresh concerns expressed by the Pentagon and Republican congressmen Mike Turner on Tuesday after a new report by American Federation of Scientists (FAS) saying Beijing was building 110 more missile silos in the eastern part of Xinjiang region, Reuters reports.
This is a second report in several weeks on the same issue after the first one reported a construction of about 120 missile silos in the desert area of Yumen, about 240 miles to the southeast. According to FAS report , the two sites signify the most significant expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal ever.
The U.S. Strategic Command reiterated in a tweet what they’ve been saying all along about the growing threat the world faces from China and the veil of secrecy that surrounds it.
US State Department expressed concerns in early July with regards to China’s nuclear buildup, calling on Beijing to reduce the risks of destabilizing arms races.
Congressman Turner of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, called the China’s nuclear build-up unprecedented and a threat to the United States and its allies that should be condemned by all responsible nations.
The minimum deterrence approach has kept China’s nuclear weapons at a comparatively low level with 2020 Pentagon report showing China’s nuclear warhead stockpile is estimated in the low 200s compared to the US stockpile of around 3,800 warheads, 1,357 of which were deployed as of March 1, according to a State Department factsheet.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, on the other side, estimates that China has about 350 nuclear warheads compared to 5,550 possessed by the US and the 6,255 by Russia.
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