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Subject: Chinese Nuclear Arsenal
Roman    2/22/2004 10:52:18 PM
Whenever I read anything about the Chinese nuclear arsenal, I see it stated that China has only 20 ICBMs capable of reaching the US and 450 nuclear warheads in total. Can someone please enlighten me how these numbers are obtained? To me they simply lack any credibility. China had 20 ICBMs that could reach the U.S. 20 years ago and the same applies to the number of 450 nuclear warheads. I find it hard to believe they would not have built more (in fact, many more) in the meantime. It is not as if they could not afford it - Chinese economy now is far larger than the Soviet economy ever was. In fact, Chinese economy (in PPP terms) now is larger than US economy was in 1990 when the Cold War ended, so it would have no economic problems at all building more ICBMs and nuclear warheads. Of course, unlike the U.S. and Russia, they do not release information on the number of their nuclear weapons, so my theory is that the press and academia follows an inertia - someone stated those numbers sometime around 1980 and nobody has said anything different since then, so they have become 'unchanging conventional wisdom'. It would be interesting to read some new studies (without these not credible numbers being regurgicated without any explanation) on the matter, but if any exist they are surely classified.
 
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Salvo    RE:Measuring Economies - Worcester   4/15/2004 9:46:54 PM
You forgot UAE, Singapore, SK, Taiwan, Brunei, Hong Kong, etc. etc. all of whom have high as if not higher per capitas as Europe. (I love it how everyone thinks no other rich countries exist outside of Europe... go to for the full list. OECD = Rich country's club,these guys collectively gather every year to plan on how to exploit poorer countries. ) - But calculations on quality of living based strictly on per capita is an insanely rough estimation. Theres income distribution, access to proper healthcare, the distance between your neighbors house and yours. Varyingly different things. Anyhow, PPP is a good way to estimate between similar economies. Industrialized countries and the crap they buy is varyingly different from a third world starving country. (aka people who see half a loaf of bread as a good day's meal don't give a rat's ass about gucci bags) So, basically these economists have several basket of goods in which they calculate the relative fixed rate of a particular currency in relation to recipient currency (usually the US dollar). Anyhow.... back to the nuclear arsenals.
 
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dudley    RE:Chinese Nuclear Arsenal   4/16/2004 12:38:13 AM
roman i economy is real.
 
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dudley    RE:Chinese Nuclear Arsenal   4/16/2004 12:41:01 AM
the bots. america deserves her wealth cus they earnrd it,are you jealous?
 
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Roman    RE:Chinese Nuclear Arsenal   5/12/2004 12:41:10 AM
Hmm, I am just thinking... it would be advantageous to bring China into negotiations on nuclear weapons reduction, which seem to be concentrated solely on the US and Russia. The upper estimates of their undisclosed arsenal put the Chinese relatively close to those two nations, so it is time for them to be included.
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan    RE:Chinese Nuclear Arsenal   5/12/2004 5:28:02 AM
First you'd have to get China to admit they have more than 450 warheads. The Chinese love to toot their horn about "morality" concerning nukes. Their safeguards may be good but 2000 warheads is plenty more than 450.
 
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Roman    RE:Chinese Nuclear Arsenal   5/12/2004 10:32:24 PM
Well, given the fact that China does not disclose much information on its nuclear forces, such an admission would not really lead to much loss of face on the part of the Chinese.
 
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Roman    Nature of Deployment of the Chinese ICBM Arsenal   5/13/2004 9:43:01 PM
I recall that China used to deploy its missiles in underground tunnels and would roll them out before launch. Is this still the case or have they transitioned to a silo-based deployment of ICBMs? If the latter is the case, do they favour silo dispersal or the densely packed silo system? Do they emphasize camouflage or hardening? Perhaps they employ a combination of the two - the Russians/Soviets were said to keep their silos connected with tunnels through which they could allegedly covertly move the missiles. Also, how is Chinese progress on mobile ICBMs? They were working on vehicle mounted ICBMs and possibly Russian/Soviet style train mounted ICBMs too, but I am not sure what came out of that.
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan    RE:Nature of Deployment of the Chinese ICBM Arsenal   5/14/2004 10:36:14 PM
I think China has a silo system and is expanding on its tunnel system to accomodate the mobile ICBM launchers. They certainly have the labor pool for around the clock digging. I imagine even if Moscow didn't advocate selling mobile launcher technology to them that someone in Russia slipped to the Chinese for a handsome reward.
 
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Roman    RE:Nature of Deployment of the Chinese ICBM Arsenal   5/18/2004 8:59:36 PM
Hmm, so it appears that China has all types of launchers.
 
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   RE:Nature of Deployment of the Chinese ICBM Arsenal - Roman   5/18/2004 9:31:26 PM
There have been two publicly indentified Chinese missile silos, both near Luoning in Henan Province in central China. It is believed that the remainder of the force is dispersed over a large area and road mobile, for easy relocation to launch sites when necesarry. Its also possible, but not certain, that there may be other hardened silos..
 
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