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China is amassing nukes much faster than previously thought –
Pentagon report
4 Nov, 2021 06:23
© Greg Baker/AFP
China is beefing up its nuclear arsenal a lot faster than Washington thought just a year ago, a new Pentagon report says, predicting that Beijing will own at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by the end of the decade.
Why? Because if we're going to blow the earth to Hell, we might as well do a good job of it.
The Department of Defense published its newest assessment of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) wartime potential in an annual report titled Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.
“The accelerating pace of the PLA’s nuclear expansion may enable the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to have up to about 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027,” a Pentagon official said, describing the key details of the report.
And the report states that the PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 – exceeding the pace and the size that we projected in the 2020 China Military Power report.
The last year’s report claims that China’s existing nuclear warhead stockpile was “in the low 200s,” projecting that the number would at least double during the 2020s.
The US views China as a strategic rival on the world stage. The countries have accused each other of stirring up tensions around Taiwan and the wider South China Sea region.
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Wednesday that the US forces “absolutely have the capability” to defend Taiwan should Beijing try to seize the island.
At a regular press briefing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the Pentagon’s report “ignores facts and is full of prejudice.”
Wang described the US as “the world’s largest source of nuclear threats,” because it has “the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world.”
The diplomat added that “as long as no country uses nuclear weapons against China, it will not be threatened by China’s nuclear weapons.”
According to the US Department of State, Washington’s stockpile consisted of 3,750 nuclear warheads as of September 2020.
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Putin & Lukashenko approve new military doctrine as they ink
Russia-Belarus integration docs
4 Nov, 2021 17:16
The Russian and Belarusian presidents have signed a revised Union State military doctrine, as well as a package of other integration documents, paving the way for bringing the two nations closer together.
The landmark documents were signed by Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Lukashenko on Thursday during a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus. Due to Covid-19 measures, the meeting was held via a video link.
The new military doctrine, also signed on Wednesday, would “make defense policy more coherent [and] adapt the objectives of the defense ministries in a timely fashion,” State Secretary of the Union State Dmitry Mezentsev said.
Announcing the revision last month, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said the doctrine had been updated to better coordinate the actions of the two nations, not only purely in the military arena, but also to resist the economic and political pressure coming from the “so-called collective West.”
Putin and Lukashenko also signed a package of integration documents containing 28 programs designed to unify the legislation and policies of the two nations, bringing them closer together. The integration program is focused on economics, and includes the creation of a unified gas and oil market, as well as closer cooperation on nuclear energy.
The Russia-Belarus Union was created back in 1999, and outlined plans for deep cooperation and integration between the two countries. While the project originally foresaw the establishment of a joint parliament, cabinet, and courts, along with other shared institutions, effectively morphing the two countries into a unified state, none of these plans have since materialized.
Merging the two countries into a single state “isn’t on the agenda at all,” Lukashenko told CNN last month, when asked whether the reinvigorated integration process might lead to Belarus being “slowly absorbed into Russia.”
“This is a product of the collective Western imagination,” he stated, adding that he and Putin were “intelligent enough to create a union of two independent states” that would be sufficiently strong.
New Zealand PM refuses to say if China is ‘ally or adversary’ &
abstains from calling US ‘leading democracy’
6 Nov, 2021 08:11
©Kenzaburo Fukuhara / KYODONEWS via REUTERS
New Zealand won’t be dragged into US hostilities with China, with which it has a ‘mature’ relationship that allows for disputes and differences to be resolved in a calm manner, PM Jacinda Ardern said.
Ardern was prompted several times to take a stance on the confrontation between the US and China during an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd. One question was whether New Zealanders see China as an “ally or adversary,” to which the prime minister said her people will not “determine our relationship with any country in such stacked terms.”
China is New Zealand’s biggest trading partner, which, Ardern said, does not inhibit her country from criticizing Beijing when it sees fit.
We have maturity in our relationship to raise issues that we are concerned about, be it human rights issues, be it labor issues, be it environmental issues.
Commenting on the rift that New Zealand’s neighbor, Australia, has had with China after siding with the US in its great power competition against Beijing, Ardern said these tensions “will not change the way we behave.”
“It’s important to us that we continue to have… integrity, to raise those issues that concern us,” she said, adding that her country will use established mechanisms like the World Trade Organization to resolve trade disputes “regardless of what happens in diplomatic circles.”
Asked by Todd whether she thinks Biden’s America is “still the leading democracy in the world,” Ardern said the US “has an incredibly important role to play in the Pacific region.” She added that Washington should have greater engagement, not just in terms of “issues viewed through a strategic defense lens.”
“We would really welcome the US presence in some of that economic architecture, increasing those trading relationships in our region. We welcome any signaling that demonstrates that that’s where the US is heading towards,” she said.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement, which the US abandoned under former President Donald Trump, and which China is seeking to join in some form, is a model for multilateral trade agreements, Ardern said. Any nation willing to accept the standards set out in the TPP would be welcome to join, she said.
Todd asked if there is any line that, if crossed, “New Zealand or any other country” would not trade with a nation based on its human rights record. Ardern replied that “value judgements” are embedded in the TPP itself.
I love this woman, even though she is way too far left for me. Her unwillingness to get drawn into America's "are you with us or against us" mentality, is wonderful. Of course, NZ does not have a major arms manufacturing sector that needs to be fed by fears and threats, so it must be easier to stay aloof.
I wish all political and military leaders had that kind of maturity.
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