Why Is China Accelerating Its Buildup Of Nuclear Weapons?

Chinese DF-41 ICBMs in a military parade in Beijing, October 1, 2019. Liu Bin/Xinhua  

Benjamin Brimelow, Business Insider: Why China changed its mind about nuclear weapons and is bulking up its arsenal at 'accelerated' pace 

* China's rapid military expansion in recent years has alarmed other countries. 

* China's nuclear arsenal is much smaller than the US's, but US officials are warning about its growth. 

* Experts say Beijing wants to have enough nuclear weapons to survive and respond to an attack. 

The US Department of Defense's annual report on China's military, released in November, again illustrated the breathtaking pace and scale of China's conventional military modernization. 

This year's report also highlighted a number of developments that could threaten the US more directly than China's conventional forces — namely China's "large-scale expansion of its nuclear forces." 

That expansion is well documented. The Pentagon's 2020 report on China's military noted that Beijing's stockpile of nuclear warheads would at least double by the end of the decade. 

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WNU Editor: The experts are right when they say Beijing wants to have enough nuclear weapons to survive and respond to an attack. The number that I have been reading for the past few years has been 1,000 (almost 700 more than the current stockpile).