PLA conducts 2nd test flight of DF-41 long-range missile

The PLA Second Artillery Corps, China’s strategic missile force, conducted a second test flight of its DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile on Dec. 13, according to the US website Washington Free Beacon.

The test took place at the Wuzhai missile launch center in northern China’s Shanxi province and follows the first test in July last year. The missile is raising new concerns that Beijing is contemplating abandoning its longstanding nuclear strategy of no first use.

With a range of between 6,835 miles and 7,456 miles, the DF-41 ICBM is considered a serious threat to US national security. US observers believe the weapon will be capable of carrying multiple warheads and claim it could be used to carry out a surprise attack that could knock out an enemy’s arsenal and limit its counterstrike capabilities.

Why is China entering a nuclear security pact with Ukraine?

Xinhua News Agency on Dec. 10 reported that China and Ukraine on Dec. 5 signed a cooperative agreement which included this article: China, according to the UN Security Council Resolution 984 and the Chinese government statement on providing security guarantees to Ukraine on Dec. 4, 1994, promises unconditionally not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear Ukraine, and to provide security guarantees to Ukraine if Ukraine is attacked by nuclear weapons or threatened by such aggression.

Clearly, this is a guarantee for strategic alliance and an unusual nuclear protection umbrella. Ukraine is far from China and in no way affects the latter’s national security. What ,then, is the need for such an agreement?

First Strike — China omission of no-first-use nuclear doctrine in defense white paper signals policy shift

China omitted a reference to its no-first-use strategic nuclear weapons doctrine in a recently published government white paper, indicating Beijing shifted the policy as part of its large-scale nuclear arms buildup.

The omission, along with recent comments by a senior Chinese military officer, is raising new concerns among Pentagon officials about China’s nearly opaque strategic arms buildup.

Chinese Maj. Gen. Yao Yunzhu, a senior researcher at China’s Academy of Military Science, revealed earlier this month that China is considering expanding its growing nuclear arsenal in response to U.S. missile defense deployments and upgrades.

Is China Changing Its Position on Nuclear Weapons?

Believing that Communist China would abide by its no-first-use policy is only wishful thinking in the first place. As the United States continues down the path of suicidal disarmament, along with an almost two decade-old force collecting dust, countries such as China and Russia are modernizing their nuclear strategic forces. Within the next few years, they will likely have first strike capability. One shouldn’t expect them to hold back and leverage their military advantage to extract concessions from the USA.

INTERPRETING any country’s pronouncements about its nuclear weapons can be a study in fine distinctions, but occasionally a state says — or fails to say — something in a clear break from the past. A Chinese white paper on defense, released on Tuesday, falls into this category and now demands our attention, because it omits a promise that China will never use nuclear weapons first.

That explicit pledge had been the cornerstone of Beijing’s stated nuclear policy for the last half-century. The white paper, however, introduces ambiguity. It endorses the use of nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack but does not rule out other uses.