Eric Mack – June 1, 2021
Chinese state media is calling on a nuclear buildup as a “strategic deterrence” against the United States, Newsweek reported Tuesday.
“We must be prepared for an intense showdown between China and the U.S.,” Hu Xijin, the editor of the Chinese state-run newspaper the Global Times, wrote in an editorial Thursday. “The number of China’s nuclear warheads must reach the quantity that makes U.S. elites shiver should they entertain the idea of engaging in a military confrontation with China.”
President Joe Biden has kept up the tough public stance on China after former President Donald Trump pressed toward a trade deal that sought to call out China’s human rights abuses, intellectual property theft, forced-technology transfer, and trade imbalances.
Also, Biden announced last week a 90-day review from the U.S. intelligence community to issue a report on the COVID-19 origins, which the Trump administration has long maintained was likely released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“As the U.S. strategic containment of China has increasingly intensified, I would like to remind again that we have plenty of urgent tasks, but among the most important ones is to rapidly increase the number of commissioned nuclear warheads, and the DF-41s, the strategic missiles that are capable to strike long-range and have high-survivability, in the Chinese arsenal,” Hu brief missive began. “This is the cornerstone of China’s strategic deterrence against the U.S.”
Hu called for “a large number of Dongfeng-41, and JL-2 and JL-3 (both intercontinental-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles)” to “form the pillar of our strategic will.”
He admitted the buildup should be meant to deter war, not strike it, but he noted “U.S. hostility toward China is burning.”