A study released by two private research groups asserts that the US and China are embroiled in an incipient arms race that approaches the patterns of the Cold War.
The study, released on Thursday, called the competition potentially dangerous and said the two countries must be careful not to let the nuclear issue undermine important economic, political and cultural ties.
The report was released by the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The new study says, "Our principal finding is that the Chinese-US nuclear relationship is dramatically disproportionate in favor of the United States and will remain so for the foreseeable future."
Robert Norris, a Natural Resources Defense Council nuclear analyst and co-author of the report, accused the Pentagon of overstating the Chinese threat.
"Now that the Soviet Union is gone, the military needs a new threat to justify buying new missiles, destroyers, submarines and fighter planes. So they're hyping China," he said.
Major David Smith, a Defense Department spokesman, said a 2006 Defense Department report to Congress on China's military is based on facts and is not intended to prove that China is or is not a threat.
"It lets the facts speak for themselves. We stand by our report as being factual," Smith said, rejecting assertions that the Pentagon assessments are hyped.
The study estimated China's stockpile at around 200 warheads, compared with nearly 10,000 for the US.
"By 2015, after China deploys a new generation of ballistic missiles and the United States has completed its planned reductions, China may have some 220 warheads and the United States more than 5,000," the report said.
China has about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the continental US; the US has more than 830 missiles, most with multiple warheads, that can reach China.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS