China On Course To Become A Nuclear Superpower

A Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile at a 2015 military parade in Beijing. China may be a source for other governments wishing to buy missiles. (Photo credit: Voice of America via Wikimedia Commons.)  

New York Times: 3 Nuclear Superpowers, Rather Than 2, Usher In a New Strategic Era 

WASHINGTON — On the Chinese coast, just 135 miles from Taiwan, Beijing is preparing to start a new reactor the Pentagon sees as delivering fuel for a vast expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, potentially making it an atomic peer of the United States and Russia. The reactor, known as a fast breeder, excels at making plutonium, a top fuel of atom bombs. 

The nuclear material for the reactor is being supplied by Russia, whose Rosatom nuclear giant has in the past few months completed the delivery of 25 tons of highly enriched uranium to get production started. That deal means that Russia and China are now cooperating on a project that will aid their own nuclear modernizations and, by the Pentagon’s estimates, produce arsenals whose combined size could dwarf that of the United States.  

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WNU Editor: China's nuclear weapons growth is having an impact on U.S. policy. There is now a push to expand its nuclear arsenal to counter Russia - China nuclear weapons cooperation .... US Should Consider Expanding Nuclear Arsenal to Cope with China and Russia, Study Says (Air & Spaces Forces Magazine).