This content was published on 03 November 2021 – 23:26
Washington, Nov 3 (EFE) .- The United States estimates that China will have about 700 nuclear warheads by 2027, and that they will increase to a thousand in 2030, according to a report prepared by the US Department of Defense published this Wednesday.
These estimates are much higher than what the Pentagon made last year when it noted that Beijing had about 200 warheads that would double over the next decade.
In the report released this Wednesday and entitled “Military and Security Advances in the People’s Republic of China”, Washington maintains that the Asian giant has accelerated the production of atomic weapons and expanded its missile program.
The document adds that China currently has 975,000 active duty soldiers and the world’s largest Navy with some 355 ships and submarines, “many of which have the capacity to carry out long-range precision strikes.”
It states that the Asian country has the third largest Air Force in the world, with 2,800 aircraft, 2,250 of which are combat aircraft.
The report adds that China has made rapid progress in space, Artificial Intelligence and cyber capabilities.
On the other hand, the text mentions that China feared a possible attack from the US before the US general elections in 2020, when Donald Trump was still President (2017-2021).
In this regard, the report states that the then Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, ordered the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, to call his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng, before the elections to reassure him.
Milley’s contacts with Li were revealed in the new book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, “Peril” (“Danger”), which caused controversy last September in the US.
In the book it is said that the highest-ranking US general had two calls with Li in October 2020 and last January, when Trump was still president, to reassure Beijing and convey that the US was not going to launch any attack on China.
In an appearance before a Senate committee in late September, Milley said those calls were made with the knowledge of members of the Trump administration.
A State Department report from October 2021 indicated that the United States possesses about 3,750 nuclear warheads. EFE
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