China built secret plants for expanding nuclear arms

Washington: Just as signs are beginning to appear of a flare-up in US-China clashes, China is revealed to have initiated secret attempts at expanding its nuclear arsenal. The US news outlet ‘The Washington Post’ has claimed the US had provided details on it to its NATO allies last month. Besides, US agencies have warned that China had commenced the production of uranium and plutonium, which are required for producing nuclear weapons, in significant amounts. Currently, China has 200-300 weapons, but some analysts have demanded to take this number up to 1000.

अण्वस्त्रांची संख्या Last month, in a briefing to NATO, the US agencies had presented satellite images of China’s secret projects. They include plants from Jiuquan, Mianyang and Leshan. The three plants are secretly operational in production of uranium and plutonium, required for the production of nuclear weapons. A report published in 2017 stated that China had stopped the production of uranium in 1987 and plutonium in 1991. Despite that, the US report allegation exposes the fact that China has secretly continued the production of uranium and plutonium. China has never revealed details on this project and also on the number of nuclear weapons it possessed, which is something the US official highlighted.

अण्वस्त्रांची संख्या China has also significantly expanded its nuclear test site. In an earlier report, the US has stated China had secretly carried out nuclear tests at this site. Further, in a briefing to NATO, the US noted that a rise was observed in the Chinese military nuclear arsenal in the past decade.

Two months ago, the US Department of Defense released a report titled Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020’. The report states that China, just like the US and Russia, was stepping up efforts to acquire nuclear triad capability and would increase its nuclear stockpile by more than double. In May, a leading US daily had insisted that China needed to be prepared with a minimum of thousand nuclear weapons to curb US military ambitions.

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