Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

China quietly builds up its nuclear weapon arsenal

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats Missile Defense

Comments: 0

Has Beijing had a change of heart and revived its fondness for weapons of mass destruction while other world powers are in talks to reduce them? It seems so.

China quietly added at least 30 nuclear warheads, some already deployable, to its stockpile in 2019, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said, citing sources within the country and the Rocket Force of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

“China is in the middle of a significant modernization and expansion of its arsenal,” the think tank said.

At its annual session last month, China’s parliament approved a 1.27 trillion yuan (US$179 billion) budget for the PLA, up 6.6% year-on-year. The move came as Washington was aiming to include Beijing in talks with Moscow to cut each other’s inventory of nuclear and other strategic arms and dismantle retired stocks.

Details about the PLA’s nuclear tactics, especially related to production, capacity-building and deployment, are always concealed from overseas observers. But it is generally believed that the Chinese military houses its warheads across a number of bases in inland provinces, in particular the far-west Xinjiang, where China detonated its first atomic bomb in 1964 and its first hydrogen bomb three years later.

In July 1996, having conducted its 45th and final nuclear test at Lop Nur, a remote, largely dried up salt lake in an arid basin on the edge of a massive desert in southern Xinjiang, then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin declared a formal moratorium on nuclear testing, although further subcritical tests have likely been held over the following years.

The nuclear test base near Lop Nur has since been converted into a tourist attraction, as the PLA shifted its nuclear research and development elsewhere across Xinjiang and the western province of Sichuan.

Some military observers, including Jun Takada, a Japanese scientist and activist known for prominently opposing nuclear tests, note that large areas in backwater provinces like Xinjiang, Sichuan, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia are off-limits to locals and visitors. Some saw those closed areas as evidence of the PLA’s active nuclear stockpiling.

To be sure, the size of China’s nuclear arsenal lags way behind those of the United States and Russia. The US-based Federation of American Scientists estimated China had about 320 warheads, all stockpiled, as of 2019, compared with America’s 5,800 and Russia’s 6,370

Both countries also have more than 1,500 already deployed, either placed on missiles or on bases with operational forces

Earlier this year, Hu Xijin, the chief editor of China’s state-owned tabloid Global Times, stirred a commotion with his posts on Weibo that claimed there was not an atom of truth in the international media’s renewed smear campaign of China’s military modernization.

He suggested the PLA should more than triple its nuclear inventory to at least 1,000 warheads to match the US and reflect China’s overall strength. It is believed Hu was channeling calls from the military and the party’s hardcore faction for more funding and resources for the PLA.

When asked if Beijing had shifted its approach to nuclear development and nonproliferation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying stressed that countries with much bigger arsenals should have a bigger responsibility and that Beijing would stand by its “no first use” pledge.

Whether the increase in Beijing’s nuclear inventory is a breach of its commitment to nuclear nonproliferation is a moot point. The fact is that China is not the only power investing in its nuclear arsenal.

India, Britain, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are all increasing their capabilities, yet each country added fewer than 20 warheads last year.

But by taking the lead in an emerging new nuclear arms race, Beijing may have given the Pentagon more justification to restart its own nuclear testing, ending a decades-long hiatus since 1992.

Photo: DF-31A missiles, the tailor-made launch vehicles for Chinese nuclear warheads, seen during a military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Photo: Xinhua

Link: https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/china-quietly-builds-up-its-nuclear-weapon-arsenal/

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