U.S. Secretary Of Defense Warns Of Nuclear Arsenal Expansions Of China And Russia

On Dec. 9, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that communist China and Russia were expanding their nuclear arsenals amid growing tensions over the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Taiwan Strait crisis. He said China and Russia, the two nuclear powers, are strategic rivals of the United States.

Austin said that nuclear powers shoulder the great responsibility of avoiding provocation, reducing the risk of proliferation, and preventing nuclear escalation and nuclear war. But since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Russia has made a very irresponsible nuclear threat. New START talks between the US and Russia aimed at reducing nuclear arsenals have stalled.

Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world, followed by the United States with a total of about 3,800 active nuclear warheads. Communist China now has more than 400 nuclear warheads, according to an annual Pentagon report released last month. Their numbers have nearly doubled in the past two years. Under its strategy of accelerating the expansion of its nuclear arsenal, Communist China could have around 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, according to the report.

According to a provision of the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, the U.S. military must notify Congress if Communist China deploys more ICBMs, ICBM launchers, or more nuclear warheads on its ICBMs than the United States.