40 TheEconomistNovember 23rd 2019
1“I
’m not afraidof nuclear war,” boasted
Mao Zedong, China’s leader, in Mos-
cow in 1957. Mao noted that even if half of
China’s population were to perish in a ra-
dioactive inferno, 300m would remain. His
Soviet hosts, who were hardly known for
their softhearted devotion to human
rights, were shocked. Yet despite Mao’s in-
souciance, China did not follow America
and Russia into the arms race that saw
them pile up 60,000 nuclear weapons in
the three decades after that speech.
China is a military behemoth, but a nuc-
lear minnow. It accounts for well over half
the increase in global defence spending
since 1990, but its nuclear stockpile is just
2% of the world’s total, with a paltry 290
bombs—about the same as France or Brit-
ain. Nor does it have much to deliver them
with. The country is thought to have fewer
than 90 launchers for its land-based mis-
siles (compared with America’s 400) and
just 20 nuclear-capable bombers (America
has 66), according to the Federation ofAmerican Scientists, a research group.
China’s nuclear modesty is striking in
other ways, too. America and Russia both
keep their weapons on high alert, with nuc-
lear warheads attached to missiles even in
peacetime. They reserve the right to be the
first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.
And they have lots of tactical weapons (less
destructive ones) that can be used on the
battlefield instead of against cities.
The pla Rocket Force—the unit in
charge of nuclear weapons—does not ap-
pear to do any of this. It is not thought to
keep warheads attached to missiles, even
though that makes them slower to use and
more vulnerable to pre-emption in a crisis.
China also says it has a policy of No First
Use, meaning that it would launch nuclearweapons only in retaliation for a nuclear
strike from another country (although
American officials are sceptical). And it
does not seem to have any tactical nuclear
weapons, perhaps because it doubts they
could be used without escalating a conflict.
China has a conservative view of deter-
rence. “China’s attitudes toward nuclear
weapons have remained relatively con-
stant from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping,” note
Fiona Cunningham of George Washington
University and Taylor Fravel of mit. “China
has sought to maintain the smallest possi-
ble force capable of surviving a first strike
and being able to conduct a retaliatory
strike.” But what has sufficed in the past
may not in the future.
When President George W. Bush pulled
America out of the 30-year-old Anti-Ballis-
tic Missile (abm) treaty in 2002, China was
alarmed. The missile defences that he was
withdrawing to develop would have little
hope of intercepting thousands of Russian
missiles at once, but they might be capable
of swatting away a relatively paltry volley
from China. Barack Obama continued to
invest in missile defence. Then Donald
Trump doubled down, spending over
$10bn on missile shields in 2019 and pursu-
ing exotic schemes like space-based lasers
to zap missiles. China was particularly in-
censed by America’s deployment of a
thaad missile-defence system in South
Korea in 2017, whose radar, Chinese expertsNuclear weaponsWarheads up
China’s nuclear arsenal has been strikingly modest, but that is changingChina
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