China is, in an unlimited and opaque way, rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and more advanced systems to carry them, Stoltenberg said on Monday at a NATO conference on disarmament control in Copenhagen.
“As a world power, China has a global responsibility for disarmament,” Stoltenberg said. So far, there has been little Chinese willingness to engage in negotiations on the issue.
The Beijing authorities will also benefit from common restrictions, more openness and predictability, the NATO chief believes.
In late July, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) published a study of construction work being carried out in an area near Hami in China’s Xinjiang province. A few weeks earlier, the Washington Post reported a similar construction site with rocket storage sites or launch pads near Yumen in Gansu Province.
In total, there may be talk of 200 new rocket silos, according to FAS ‘experts. In that case, there are more than those in operation in Russia and half as many as in the United States.
China is estimated to have about 350 nuclear warheads, while the United States and Russia each have 4,000.
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