China building more nuclear armed submarines, claims analyst from US

Washington: China who has entered into an arms race with the United States has expedited the manufacture of nuclear-equipped submarines. An analyst from a study group in the United States has claimed that China has taken this decision after realising that the arms and ammunition in their possession may be insufficient for fighting a future war. The analyst warned that this Chinese set up for the nuclear-armed submarines poses a severe threat to the US Navy which has the largest naval fleet in the world.

Carnegie Tsinghua, the renowned study group from the United States, has published an article on its website about the Chinese efforts for the nuclear armed submarines. Tong Zhao, an analyst with the study group, has said that the Chinese activities are dangerous. The United States and Russia had declared the number of nuclear weapons possessed by them. But China has never revealed any information regarding nuclear weapons in its possession. It is claimed that China has a minimum of 300 nuclear weapons.

The United States and Russia have ten times the number of Chinese nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia individually have nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons. Out of these almost 4,000 weapons are active in the defence forces of each of the two countries whereas more than 1,000 weapons are on the verge of being decommissioned. The US study group has said that the Chinese nuclear weapon count is far less as compared to these two countries. The US study group informed that China, vying to become a world superpower has therefore initiated moves to increase its nuclear arsenal.

The analyst has also claimed that there is a major concern regarding Chinese activities. China feels that if the military and air force suffers damages because of an enemy attack, the submarines from the Navy can attack the enemy taking advantage of the Second Strike. Therefore, China is planning to equip the submarines with nuclear weapons to increase the Second Strike capabilities.

The People’s Liberation Army has equipped the ballistic missiles with the nuclear warheads. Chinese military and air force are said to possess 200 nuclear warheads. Whereas, as per the information revealed by a significant military study group in Europe, only 48 of the naval submarines are equipped with nuclear weapons. But the Chinese submarines are not advanced, and there are question marks on their capability of carrying a nuclear weapon. The US analyst has claimed that China is making efforts to build nuclear capable submarines, against this background expeditiously.