Report: China could alter no-first-use N-arm policy

NEW DELHI : As China expands and modernises its nuclear forces, qualitative improvements in its capabilities may alter its nuclear policy and strategy, including its no-first-use commitment, the latest report on China’s nuclear forces by Federation of American Scientists’s nuclear experts has concluded.

The report, authored by Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris, says China is adding significant new capabilities to its nuclear forces but adds that as yet there is no evidence to suggest that China has already diverted from its stated nuclear policy.

To be sure, China’s no-first-use commitment is not as unambiguous as India’s, at least in the eyes of Indian officials. Indian authorities point to how China’s white paper on defence in 2013 did not reiterate its pledge to the no-first-use doctrine.

The report states that China has a stockpile of approximately 260 nuclear warheads (same as last year) for delivery by nearly 150 land-based ballistic missiles, 48 sea-based ballistic missiles, and bombers. “This stockpile is likely to grow further over the next decade as new nuclear-capable missiles become operational,” it says.

Some of these existing missiles are said to being re-equipped to carry multiple warheads. China has also test-launched a new follow-on intercontinental road-mobile ballistic missile, which may carry multiple warheads.

“Overall, we estimate that China possesses approximately 143 nuclear-capable land-based missiles that can carry 163 nuclear warheads. The force is slowly increasing in both number and variety,” says the report.

China continues to maintain, says the report, one brigade of the DF-4 (CSS-3) ICBM, a two-stage, liquid-fuelled missile first deployed in 1980 and which can deliver a 3.3 megaton warhead more than 5,500 km away, a sufficient range to target India, part of Russia, and Guam.