China’s military is making risky moves and adding nuclear warheads, US says

WASHINGTON - China’s military has been taking increasingly dangerous actions to deter US forces in the Asia-Pacific region, including manoeuvres to intimidate US aircraft, while also bolstering its nuclear capabilities, the Pentagon said in a report released on Thursday.

The United States has recorded more “coercive and risky” air intercepts by the Chinese military in the past two years than in the previous decade, the Defence Department said in its annual report to Congress on China’s military might.

At the same time, China is continuing to build up its strategic nuclear arsenal and had most likely amassed 500 nuclear warheads as of May, the Pentagon said, an increase of about 100 over 2022’s estimate.

Since autumn 2021, the Pentagon report says, the United States has recorded more than 180 intercepts of US aircraft by Chinese military forces in the region.

China has long bristled at the US military aircraft and ships that operate in international skies and seas near China.

China has been increasingly assertive in the region, from building military infrastructure in the disputed South China Sea to buzzing planes flown by the US, Canada and other Western allies.

Such moves risk a midair crash and a wider crisis.

Examples cited in the report and a separate press statement from the Pentagon this week included a Chinese fighter jet that sped towards a US military plane, dipped under its nose and later came as close as 3m underneath it; a Chinese plane that flew within 6m of the nose of a US plane, which took evasive manoeuvres to avoid a collision; and a Chinese fighter jet that fired eight flares while only 270m from a US plane.

China did not immediately comment on the Pentagon report.

Chinese officials have previously depicted the air intercepts as reasonable responses to foreign military patrols that threatened the country’s security.

Taiwan

Like his predecessors, China’s leader Xi Jinping has said he seeks a peaceful unification with Taiwan, but he has also said he will not rule out the use of military force.

Over the past year, China has been extending its campaign of military pressure on Taiwan, sending jets, drones, bombers and other planes farther and in greater numbers to expand its presence around the island. It has warned that it could impose a blockade to choke off Taiwan.

The Pentagon’s report said China’s decades of efforts to modernise its military had continued to “widen the capability gap compared with Taiwan’s military”. It also noted that in the event of a protracted war with Taiwan, China could try to end the conflict by escalating “cyberspace, space or nuclear activities”.

Some US commanders have previously suggested that Mr Xi may have a specific time in mind for attempting a military takeover of Taiwan. But the new report emphasises that an invasion of the island would be a “significant political and military risk” for Mr Xi and the Chinese Communist Party.

“I don’t think that China has a timetable for unification, but they have a timetable for upgrading the military strength of the People’s Liberation Army,” said Dr Ying-yu Lin, a military expert at Tamkang University in Taipei, Taiwan.

“We cannot say that as the People’s Liberation Army’s strength grows, it will certainly take on Taiwan. The two must be clearly distinguished.”

Nuclear build-up

Mr Xi has markedly accelerated the expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, narrowing its big gap with the United States and Russia. China does not disclose details about how many nuclear weapons it possesses, and the Pentagon’s annual report is one of the few international sources that gives detailed assessments of China’s expansion.

The Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army, remains on track to have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, the Pentagon estimates, most of them missiles and other weapons capable of striking the continental United States.

The most eye-catching evidence of China’s nuclear build-up in recent years has been three clusters of missile silos that have been dug out of the deserts of northern China. The Pentagon report found that construction of the silos had been completed by 2022 and that “at least some” intercontinental ballistic missiles had been installed in them.

The Pentagon report also cited another development that may worry American military planners: that China “may be exploring development” of conventionally armed intercontinental missiles. Such missiles, the report said, could strike the continental United States and “would present significant risks to strategic stability”. NYTIMES