http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/28-09-2009/109546-china_nuclear-0
China's Growing Nuclear Arsenal To Be Balanced with US Hypersonic Missiles 28.09.2009 China prepares to leave Russia and the USA behind on the number of nuclear warheads. China increases its nuclear arsenal while Russia and the USA negotiate its reduction. The Chinese military will demonstrate state-of-the-art military hardware, including new ballistic missiles, at the parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the Chinese People's Republic, which will take place on October 1. In 1999, when China was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the nation, the administration of the country said that China's missile and nuclear forces, which the nation would build in ten years, would correspond to the country's place in the world hierarchy. US experts said that China had doubled its nuclear and missile potential over the above-mentioned period. The modern-day nuclear forces of China are based on latest technologies and are capable of reaching such distant targets as Washington. The DF-41 mobile missile system is expected to become the main attraction of the military parade in China. The new system, the CIA said, is capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 13,000 kilometers. It will be extremely hard to intercept Chinese ballistic missiles topped with ten dispensing warheads. China will also unveil the ground-based CSS-X-10 and the sea-based JL-2 missiles during the parade on October 1. The new Dong Hai 10 (DH-10) cruise missile is also interesting: it is developed on the base of the nuclear-capable Soviet X-55 cruise missile. China already has 200 such missiles, US special services say. Many of them are deployed in the southern part of the country and are targeted against Taiwan. Why does China want to demonstrate its new powerful nuclear potential at the time when the United States and Russia are negotiating its reduction? China wants the USA to know that it is ready to respond to any challenge. "The USA will be paying more attention to Russia as long as the nuclear attention of Russia is larger than that of China. Nevertheless, the USA's concerns about China's growing nuclear potential have been growing steadily, of course. There is a certain amount of rivalry between the two countries, but they are not going to wage war with each other. They are strongly dependent on each other economically - their economic relations determine their politics," Pavel Zolotarev, a military expert with the Institute for the USA and Canada, told Pravda.Ru. The USA does not sit on its hands either, though. The country has been developing high-accuracy hypersonic weapons that are capable of striking the territory of an enemy in mere minutes. To put it in a nutshell, up to 90 percent of ballistic missiles will be destroyed before they could be launched. The rest will be destroyed with the help of the structured missile defense system, which Washington has been working on for years already. Sergey Balmasov Pravda.Ru [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
