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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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elcid    RE:Chinese Nuclear Arsenal   5/19/2004 8:09:28 AM
It is my fault: I pointed out to Stephen Aftergood their number was way to low. 2000 is conservative: it may be 3000. But 2000 is not a bad estimate. PRC does not build a lot of nw at any given time, and it is very conservative in its doctrine. That it theoretically could have built more does not mean that it did.
 
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elcid    RE:Chinese Economy   5/19/2004 8:17:16 AM
BB wrote: There is no way that China's economy is bigger than the former Soviet Union's. elcid replies: While I do not think PRC is "the second largest economy" as you often hear, you are incorrect. In 1986 PRC was 12th and USSR was number 5. But by 1994, Russia had dropped to 9th, while PRC plus Hong Kong had achieved 7th rank. Actually, PRC has stopped its relative position growth: it remains 7th today. But Russia is still dropping, and is no longer in the top 12. Above China are (in order) USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and UK. By official UN statistics, measureing GDP.
 
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elcid    RE:Nature of Deployment of the Chinese ICBM Arsenal   5/19/2004 8:25:22 AM
I think there is rampant confusion here. You can see imagery of PRC launch silos if you wish. Probably some is on FAS.org site, where John Pike posted a lot of PRC imagery, old and newer. Anyway, PRC uses silos for ICBMs and we know where they are. Periodic press reports on their number are pretty accurate. But what is not understood well is that each launch brigade has multiple reloads, on mobile vehicles. IF they launch a missile, they replace it, so the unit remains effective. There are at least 4 rounds per launcher. At lower levels (below ICBM) there are 8 rounds per launcher. And enough boosters have been built there can be 8 rounds per launcher. [Some of those boosters are used for space launch - so we don't know how many are for ICBM use.] The other interesting thing is that NONE of these missiles have warheads. Yep. None. PRC does not trust anyone that much. Weapons are in the custody of another agency, not the second artillery. Orders and warheads arrive together. That is why China does not do "launch on warning." They would not have warning anyway, and they have nothing ready to shoot. So they wait it out, then retaliate. It is called "minimum deterrence" theory. It is my favorite, by the way. Wish we did that. [We once did. Truman gave all warheads to the AEC, not to USAF.]
 
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Roman    RE:Nature of Deployment of the Chinese ICBM Arsenal   5/20/2004 8:40:09 PM
Thanks ElCid and 'unidentified poster'! It is quite reassuring to hear that China keeps its warheads apart from the missiles. It would indeed be nice if the next round of arms control agreements (and I believe that given the size of the Chinese arsenal, it too should be included in future nuclear arms talks) forced all nuclear powers to do the same. BTW: On Globalsecurity.org I just read an intelligence release by the ROC government which indicates that the number of China's ICBMs is now in excess of 100 missiles, instead of the previously often cited 20-30.
 
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Roman    RE:Chinese Economy   5/20/2004 9:16:12 PM
Well, now that you are speaking about economics you are beginning to thread on my area of expertise, so I can perhaps finally contribute something. First of all, there are several ways to measure the size of a country's economy. The two most commonly used are: 1) Nominal GDP 2) Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) GDP Nominal GDP is useful for example for measuring the ability to raise credit on international markets. Here is the ranking and GDP figures for 10 countries with the highest nominal GDP in the world in 2002 (World Bank Figures). Rank Country Nominal GDP (in USD) 1) USA 10.38 trillion 2) Japan 3.993 trillion 3) Germany 1.984 trillion 4) United Kingdom 1.566 trillion 5) France 1.431 trillion 6) China* 1.266 trillion 7) Italy 1.184 trillion 8) Canada 714.3 billion 9) Spain 653.1 billion 10) Mexico 637.2 billion *Not including Hong Kong and Macau So, ElCid, your figures on nominal GDP are a little old and by 2002 China had already overtaken Italy. The problem is that for the purposes of measuring productive capacity of an economy and its ability to support armed forces, nominal GDP is pretty much a useless measure, because it depends on exhange rates. Italy's nominal GDP today is again larger than the Chinese one (though China will overtake Italy for the second time this year). How is this possible? After all China has been economically booming in the past two years, while Italian growth has been stagnant, yet somehow, Italy's nominal GDP retook its former position again. The answer lies in exchange rates. Chinese Yuan is undervalued and pegged to the US Dollar. The dollar has declined against the Euro during the past two years, and since Yuan is tied to the dollar it too declined against the Euro, which created the illusion that the Italian economy (and all Euro area economies) has grown massively in dollar terms even though in reality it was stagnant. To remove the distorting effect of echange rates on GDP comparisons, we have the purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP, which assumes a constant exchange rate to equalize price differentials. PPP GDP is a much better measure of the size of an economy's productive capacity. Here are the 2002 figures (courtesy of the World Bank again) for PPP GDP. As you can see, the reality is rather different from what nominal GDP would indicate. Rank Country Nominal GDP (in USD) 1) USA 10.14 trillion 2) China* 5.732 trillion 3) Japan 3.261 trillion 4) India 2.695 trillion 5) Germany 3.172 trillion 6) France 1.554 trillion 7) United Kingdom 1.511 trillion 8) Italy 1.481 trillion 9) Brazil 1.312 trillion 10) Russia 1.142 trillion *Not including Hong Kong and Macau These figures are for 2002. If you look at China's economic growth over the past two years, you can easily calculate that China's PPP GDP today is about 7 trillion USD if you also add Hong Kong and Macau. For more information, please read the post: "Measuring Economies - Worcester" It is located in below in this thread.
 
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elcid    RE:Nature of Deployment of the Chinese ICBM Arsenal   5/21/2004 8:47:53 AM
Roman wrote: On Globalsecurity.org I just read an intelligence release by the ROC government which indicates that the number of China's ICBMs is now in excess of 100 missiles, instead of the previously often cited 20-30 Elcid replies: Global Security is John Pike. Apparently he finally bought my argument about reloads - advanced in 1998 when he was at FAS.org. The number of ICBMs is different from the number of launchers. Both numbers are true.
 
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elcid    RE:Chinese Economy [PPP]   5/21/2004 8:56:31 AM
I can think of no misleading indicator than PPP for PRC. You have to count everything - even unpaid services in a family or a village. PPP measures buy no car, tanks, planes, ships, tv sets, nothing you don't see indicated in GDP data. If they don't do it in GDP, they don't do it at all. The difference is "services" - even babysitting is valued. Now I don't mean these things don't matter. But if you tally all the personal services among 1/3 of the people on the planet, you get a distorted idea of how much of an economy in the sense that matters to global trade, or production that matters for military purposes, may be. And my data was colledted in 1999, and just updated by following the Economist. If the Economist is not wrong about real growth rates in the top 12, than China is 7, not 6, and I INCLUDE Hong Kong in the data, because it is part of China. I did a data study for about 15 years, from the 1980s through about 1999, and found that there had been a rapid growth period in relative terms, earlier. Further, Russia did a major nose dive in the early 1990s, economically speaking, which made the relative position of PRC change upward. [Russia no longer is on the list of top 12]. But as Russia comes back, economically, the reverse may occur. The real surprise for me was India, which is climbing in the sense China did in the 80s. And I think India is better positioned to participate in the world economy, because of mastery of English and western institutions. I look for India to be in the top 4 or 5 by mid century, with USA, Japan, Russia and China. EU could be, but only if it unified, which seems unlikely at the moment. And I was shocked that UK is below Italy. Any study in the mid 20th century would have concluded that could never happen!
 
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c4d5    RE:Chinese Roman   5/25/2004 10:26:59 PM
"In regards to the procurement numbers for the Type 094, nobody knows really." This seems to be PLAN top-guarded secrecy. Once they can deploy 5+ type 094, they will have enough SLBM to build up second-strike nuclear deterence.
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan    RE:Chinese economy   5/25/2004 11:50:58 PM
Even the Chinese officially state their economy at 1.7 trillion, I wonder if they do that to qualify for world bank loans and UN grants while being the #1 source of FDI in the world last year, this year and at least the next 5 years. No one can really believe what comes out of china because the top leadership may want to keep certain aspects, both negative and positive, secret. At the same time subordinates follow the old imperial tradition of reporting nothing but good news to the boss. I imagine Beijing doesn't have a truly clear vision of its own national economy because no one wants to "loose their head". They may not about a severe problem until it walks up and introduces itself. For Chinese nuke warheads being seperate from the missiles, that is a great saftey measure. It also keeps a military leader from unilaterally declaring themselves in power or at least having any sway in national politics. Emperor after emperor has been tossed by military leaders in this country who amassed too much power. It would be too easy for one PLA general in the second artillery, with the natural loyalty of his men, to decide to call the CPC and give his "suggestions" about how things should be done.
 
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elcid    Type 094 count   5/29/2004 9:22:24 PM
Western analysts always predicted there would be 4 Xia's. Instead, only one was built. [A second one was laid down, but apparently scrapped - although there is a rumor she was lost.] Similarly, today, everyone predicts 4 or 5 094. But only one is launched, and only one more is ordered. Further, Xia never made a deterrent patrol. It is enough, apparently, that PRC "has" a boomer. Think about the politics of actually arming one: it would be useless unless you put warheads and missiles on her. But then the problem of the general out of control would exist, in spades. Too much power, apparently, in too few hands. No one is to be trusted that much. I bet the 094s will not change that pattern anytime soon. [They may before their operational life is over - which should be decades from now.] I am projecting two units, and no ballistic missiles, used as SSNs, just as Xia is. PLA does not feel it has to do things our way, and it has its own logic. This, as far as I can tell, involves "we don't trust anybody enough" to give them command or an armed SSBN. Building one or two gives them the option to change their mind, in some situation in the future, and the ability to say with pride "we have boomers too."
 
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