Taiwan faces a “very severe” nuclear threat from China, a Washington forum was told on Thursday. Adjunct professor at Georgetown University Phillip Karber made the assessment after releasing a paper by Russian General Viktor Yesin titled China’s Nuclear Potential.
The paper, published last month in a Russian military journal and recently translated into English, concluded that China has up to 1,800 nuclear warheads. Previous estimates of China’s nuclear arsenal have generally put the warhead figure at a few hundred.
“This new paper is of enormous importance,” said forum organizer Rick Fisher, who is a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
Karber said the paper showed that China was now fielding three missiles — the DF-11 the DF-15 and the DH-10 — with nuclear warheads that could strike anywhere in Taiwan.
There was an assumption, he said, that some of the warheads used enhanced radiation technology which would kill people, but leave infrastructure intact so that Taiwan could subsequently be occupied.
Yesin estimated that some of the DF-11, DF-15 and DH-10 missiles had single nuclear warheads ranging from 5 kilotonnes to 20 kilotonnes each.
Taiwan was the “cork” in the first island chain, Karber said.
“If that cork gets reversed, that is if Taiwan comes under the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] and they start military operations from the island, it will be a very serious issue,” he said.
Such a development, Karber said, would change the “entire equation” and the defensibility of Asia would “shift dramatically.”
“We have got to be careful with these friends of ours. If we are not willing to go to their aid and go quickly they become more vulnerable,” he added.
Yesin, a former chief of staff of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, is currently a professor at the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation.
Yesin is viewed as an authoritative source “closely associated with Russian government positions,” Karber said.
The paper said China provided no official information about its nuclear arsenal and that Beijing argued that its nuclear weapons were “insignificant in number.”
However, Yesin said in the paper that an analysis of the capacity of Chinese factories that supply special fissionable materials indicated that as of last year, they could have produced up to 40 tonnes of weapons-grade uranium and about 10 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium. This is enough material for the production of about 3,600 nuclear warheads, but it was likely that half or more of the total was in stockpiles.
Yesin said there were “probably” 1,600 to 1,800 warheads in the Chinese nuclear arsenal. He said the nuclear capability of China had clearly been underestimated by the Western expert community.
“It is necessary to take into account the Chinese factor when considering any of the next -Russian-American agreements on the further reduction and limitation of nuclear weapons,” Yesin said. “It is time to bring China into multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament.”
CALL FOR PEACE: Czech President Petr Pavel raised concerns about China’s military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait and its ‘unfriendly action’ in the South China Sea The leaders of three diplomatic allies — Guatemala, Paraguay and Palau — on Tuesday voiced support for Taiwan’s inclusion in the UN on the first day of the UN General Debate in New York. In his address during the 78th UN General Assembly, Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr urged the UN and all parties involved in cross-strait issues to exercise restraint and seek a peaceful resolution. “The well-being and prosperity of nations and their economies are intrinsically linked to global peace and stability,” he said. He also thanked partner nations such as Taiwan, Australia, Japan and the US for providing assistance
CROSS-STRAIT CONCERNS: At the same US Congress hearing, Mira Resnick said a US government shutdown could affect weapons sales and licenses to allies such as Taiwan A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would be a “monster risk” for Beijing and likely to fail, while a military invasion would be extremely difficult, senior Pentagon officials told the US Congress on Tuesday. Growing worries of a conflict come as China has ramped up military pressure on Taiwan, holding large-scale war games simulating a blockade on the nation, while conducting near-daily warplane incursions and sending Chinese vessels around its waters. US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner said a blockade would be “a monster risk for the PRC [People’s Republic of China].” “It would likely not succeed, and it
IMPORTS: Fifty-four million imported eggs with a value of more than NT$200 million had to be destroyed, mostly because they expired in storage facilities Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) last night announced that he would resign from his post. Local media on Sunday reported that Chen had resigned due to controversy over the ministry’s egg import program. Later that same evening, the Executive Yuan said that Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) had asked the minister to stay on to resolve the issue. Chen Chi-chung last night made public his decision to resign on Facebook, saying that this time he would not be dissuaded. Chen Chi-chung earlier yesterday apologized for the furor surrounding the egg import program, but added that misinformation had made the problems worse. The government was
AMPHIBIOUS EXERCISES: The defense ministry said that it had detected 24 Chinese PLA Air Force planes entering Taiwan’s air defense zone over the previous 24 hours Chinese movements around Taiwan were “abnormal,” Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday, flagging recent amphibious exercises in addition to drills Taipei has observed in China’s Fujian Province. Taiwan has reported a rise in Chinese military activity over the past week as dozens of fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships, have operated around the nation. “Our initial analysis is that they are doing joint drills in September, including land, sea, air and amphibious,” Chiu told reporters at the legislature in Taipei. The “recent enemy situation is quite abnormal,” he said. The comments followed a statement from the
RSS