A rapid nuclear build up
Could turn China
Into a new Cold War threat.
Welcome to China Uncensored, I’m Chris Chappell.
There are only a handful of evil, nuclear powers in the world. Russia . North Korea . France .
But China is rapidly rising not just as a nuclear power,
but a nuclear superpower that could rival the US and Russia.
Which is great news. For years I’ve been talking about how we’re in a second Cold
War. And what’s a Cold War without the threat of nuclear armageddon?
Time to start teaching kids to just hide under
their desk again. Everyone knows nuclear blasts can’t get ya if you’re down here.
In the 2022 National Defense Strategy,
The Pentagon said, “By the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history,
face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.”
That’s a big deal. The world was just barely able to survive the threat of
nuclear annihilation when it was just the US vs. the Soviet Union. Throw China in the mix,
and now the US is “facing questions about how to manage a three-way nuclear rivalry,
which upends much of the deterrence strategy that has successfully avoided nuclear war.”
In other words…
We’ve got a Mexican standoff. With nukes.
Which is terrifying. Considering how many enemies Russia and China have,
nuclear war would look like the darkest Oprah episode of all time.
“Taiwan! You get a nuke! And Ukraine! You get a nuke! You *all* get nukes!”
For years, China has been telegraphing its ambitions to expand its nuclear arsenal.
During the Communist Party Congress last October, Xi Jinping specifically said,
“We will establish a strong system of strategic deterrence.”
And by that, he meant nukes. Darn. I was hoping he was just talking about a board with a nail in it.
It was good enough to fend off an alien threat that one time.
Currently, China has about 410 nuclear warheads.
But according to the Pentagon’s latest China Military Power report,
“If China continues the pace of its nuclear expansion,
it will likely field a stockpile of about 1500 warheads by its 2035 timeline.”
That would essentially put it on par with Russia and the United States. Which is still a lot
better than the height of the Cold War when there were about 70,000 nuclear warheads in the world.
Which I would say is overkill. Except “kill” isn’t a strong enough word. Maybe overatomization?
Except I don’t even know if our atoms would survive that many nukes.
Since some researcher says all it takes is 100 nuclear warheads going off to destroy the world,
we’re really just talking about shades of armageddon.
So, is there anything that can be done to stop the Chinese Communist Party from getting more nukes?
Well, here’s the United States' most senior military officer,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley .
“We are probably not going to be able to do anything to stop, slow down,
disrupt, interdict, or destroy the Chinese nuclear development
program that they have projected out over the next 10 to 20 years.”
Great job. 11 out of 10. No notes.
The US State Department did recently put together an expert panel to deal with the situation. The
State Department warned, “the United States is entering one of the most complex and
challenging periods for the global nuclear order, potentially more so than during the Cold War.”
They panel was given 180 days to come up with solutions.
But there’s a reason why China’s nuclear program is developing so quickly. It’s because China’s
getting a little help from their friends . And it could have big ramifications for Taiwan.
I’ll tell you more after this quick commercial break.
Welcome back.
China has massive nuclear ambitions.
And Russia is going to help.
Russia has huge arms.
And I’m not just talking about Putin’s guns.
If the two countries combine their nuclear arsenal, it would dwarf the United States’.
Especially since President Obama “advocated a ‘nuclear-free world’”...
And “put in place a strategy to reduce American
reliance on nuclear arms in hopes that other powers would follow suit.”
He really didn’t understand how authoritarian regimes work
That’s like someone saying, “If *I* become a vegetarian,
then surely these hyenas will also start preferring tofurkey.”
And now, China is working on a nuclear reactor that some say may be for more than just energy.
It's on the coast of Fujian province, just over 100 miles away from Taiwan,
It will be a type of reactor known as a fast breeder.
And no, I’m not talking about Nick Cannon.
Or China’s answer to the country running out of children.
A Fast Breeder reactor makes plutonium, which is a top fuel for atomic weapons.
A senior Pentagon official recently told Congress, “There’s no getting
around the fact that breeder reactors are plutonium, and plutonium is for weapons.”
Hey, you can’t be sure of that. Maybe they just want to make plutonium for a new
skincare line. Nothing says beautiful like giving your complexion that elegant glow.
And get this—a Russian company is providing the nuclear material for these reactors.
The company is called Rosatom , and it’s Russia’s top atomic
energy company. It was formed by Putinin 2007. So no state connections or anything.
“In the past few months [Rosatom] completed the delivery of 25 tons of
highly enriched uranium to get production started [at the Chinese reactor].”
Now China insists the new reactor is purely for civilian energy production.
And some do say the Pentagon is just fear mongering. Spreading fake news even.
Fast breeder reactors can’t produce weapons grade plutonium very effectively or cheaply.
Okay, but what about skincare grade plutonium?
Since the 50’s, “practically the entirety of the plutonium employed
in nuclear weapons in the world so far has been produced in dedicated
military facilities by reactors of a completely different type.”
Now China does have what it calls military civil fusion, so it's entirely possible it
could hide a nuclear build up from the West by disguising it as a civilian operation.
Probably better than they’re “civilian” spy — er, I mean civilian meteorological — balloons .
But Asia Times says the real threat is that
“China and Russia are poised to dominate the world’s entire nuclear power sector,
while the US and other Western countries have
for decades been downsizing and even dismantling their nuclear industries.”
That has left a huge opening for China and Russia to export nuclear
power plants and dominate nuclear supply chains.
But whether this specific reactor is a threat, what is clear is that China
and Russia have a fusion of purpose when it comes to splitting the West.
When Xi Jinping visited Putin in Russia last month, Rosatom and the China Atomic Energy
Authority signed an agreement that would see them working together for years if not decades.
From satellite photos taken by Planet Labs,
we can see that China is building vast fields of missile silos.
“In total, the silo fields could hold up to an estimated 350 intercontinental ballistic missiles,
each potentially armed with multiple warheads.”
You know it’s bad when you see China digging giant
holes and think it’d be less scary if these were just mass graves.
Now, in the past, China kept its nuclear warheads stored separately
from its missiles, which meant if China ever started moving one to the other,
the Pentagon would have plenty of advanced warning China was up to something.
But, “new solid-fuel missiles that will probably be installed in the
silos are more likely to be coupled to their warheads.”
Meaning that advanced warning would be gone.
Other signs that the Chinese Communist Party is making a rapid push to strengthen
its nuclear arsenal are the construction of “reprocessing plants for spent nuclear fuel,
new reactors that appear to have no role in the civilian power grid,
and building activity at Lop Nor, China’s very first nuclear test site.”
Wait, they’re reprocessing spent nuclear fuel? Well, on the bright side,
I guess it’s nice to see China recycling. They care about the environment after all!
On top of that, China has been developing what’s called the
nuclear triad—the ability to deliver nuclear warheads by land, sea, and air.
In particular, China has made a big push to develop its nuclear submarine fleet.
Which is worrying, since as far back as 2006, a Chinese submarine was successfully able to
stalk a US aircraft carrier without being detected, until it surfaced and said hello.
All this comes as the New START treaty is collapsing. It’s basically the
only treaty left limiting the size of America and Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
It only has 1,000 days left unless the US and Russia renegotiate something.
And with the war in Ukraine, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
On the bright side, this means the US can build more nukes, too!
Now I’m *sure* even our atoms won’t survive the blasts.
But the Ukraine war has also taught China a valuable lesson.
I mean, not valuable if your goal is to prevent a nuclear armageddon.
But…the specter of nuclear war has hung over the entire Ukraine war.
At the end of March, Russia even announced it will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus,
near Ukraine’s border, although actual deployment seems to be a ways off yet.
Still, China wants to do to Taiwan what Russia did to Ukraine. Okay, maybe more successfully,
but you get my point. The fear is that China would threaten to use nuclear force to take Taiwan,
with the calculus being the United States would let Taiwan fall rather than risk nuclear war.
However, as I said at the beginning, the US is trying to deal with the situation.
“The Biden administration has announced plans to make the first new warhead for
the nation’s nuclear arsenal since the Cold War.”
Wait, we haven’t made a new nuke since the Cold War?!
Can someone check the expiration date on the old ones? They can’t still be good, right?
And that’s part of a much larger nuclear overhaul of America’s atomic bases, plants,
bombers, submarines, and land-based missiles that began in 2014.
And with a price tag of up to a trillion dollars, we can’t afford not to spend that!
I’m kidding, of course. Because more recent estimates put it at up to two trillion dollars.
What is an extra trillion dollars of debt when it comes to nuclear annihilation?
Being deeper in a hole is actually good, since with all the nuclear fallout,
humanity will need to start living underground anyway.
Of course, China and Russia are saying the US nuclear
overhaul is why they need to upgrade theirs, which makes the US nervous,
so they need to overhaul even faster. And we all spiral to oblivion.
Time to start hiding under our desks again, kids.
But you know, for far less than the price of a nuke,
you can support China Uncensored, so we can afford to keep making episodes.
All it takes is a dollar an episode over on patreon.com/chinauncensored.
So much cheaper than a nuke, why wouldn’t you do it?
And as a thank you to everyone who contributes,
the fans I call the China Uncensored 50 cent army, I’ll answer one of their questions on the show.
Today’s question comes from Gueran “If you three (Chris, Matt, and Shelly) found
yourselves caught and transported to the middle of China, survivor style,
which one of you three has the best chances of escaping and why?
An excellent question! And a horrible idea. I don’t think
any of us would have a great shot at surviving.
But I would have to say, sorry Shelley, but Matt would probably have the best chance of escaping
and surviving. He’s just better organized and better at planning than Shelley and I. Which
will be abundantly clear when we get to that Minecraft livestream we’re going to do one day
on our new channel Gamers Unbeaten . Which is a real thing in case you haven’t checked it out yet.
Thanks for your question and your support, Gueran.
And thank you for watching. Once again I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.