Is it possible for China to stockpile the largest amount of nuke warheads?

The US wasn't exactly unable to built a military counter-weight to the USSR, even nuke wise. I would argue rather the opposite. The fact that the US had lesser warheads and delivery systems, as written down in treaties, wasn't due to the lack of american production capability. The US systems just were more accurate, hence they didn't need to launch three to five warheads in the hope one might hit the target. There's no point in turning tundra into waistland.
Furthermore, those warheads are really expansive to maintain. If there's no operational / strategic need, then way put the financial stress on the country to have a 20x overkill instead of a 15x overkill?

Originally Posted by Scratch

The US wasn't exactly unable to built a military counter-weight to the USSR, even nuke wise. I would argue rather the opposite. The fact that the US had lesser warheads and delivery systems, as written down in treaties, wasn't due to the lack of american production capability. The US systems just were more accurate, hence they didn't need to launch three to five warheads in the hope one might hit the target. There's no point in turning tundra into waistland.
Furthermore, those warheads are really expansive to maintain. If there's no operational / strategic need, then way put the financial stress on the country to have a 20x overkill instead of a 15x overkill?

Have you thought why there are no counter weight countries against Russia?

Expanding China's deterrence capability is obviously necessary and Beijing appears to do something about that (DF-31A, JL-2, cruise missiles) although in my POV all this this should already have been done yesterday...

there is no point in keeping a crap load of nukes capable of destroying your enemy 10 times over. Beijing would be pretty stupid to spend all of its money on nukes now as modern warfare is already defined as "local warfare under high-tech conditions"...

i agree with pla101prc
it's back to the basic question of practical needs
yes, nukes = political and strategic weapon
but u need to maintain them, and the threats of a nuke goes both ways: others and self. accidents and broken arrows can cause more problems than not having one. so yea. if u're gonna own one, u need to feed it and keep it safe. not easy to maintain one of those beasts

and plus china aint bent into being a nuclear madman---it's also against chinese grand strategy of being a peaceful nation. and all the diplomatic fuss and what not, none of it is worth it

Well, no countries on earth except the US have thought of possible conventional war with Russia.

Yet Tons of countries try to contain and prepare possible conventional conflict with China, what's the reason??? As China prepare more conventional arms , surroudning coutries are beefing up also, the vicious cycle never end. If CHina holds 5000 nuke warheads, it will end this silly conventional arm race with its neighbors once and for all. F-22 is just a piece of mickymouse.

Well it's because Russia overwhelming nuke warheads other countries are afraid.

If CHina has enough or more nuke warheads than Russia, then it doesn't need to worry about conventional conflict. Russia is not worry.

modern warfare is already defined as "local warfare under high-tech conditions"... That's for sissies. or against weaker opponents.

Nevertheless improving Second Artillery is only a partial remedy for China's woes since Beijing's major deficiency is a complete absence of Public Diplomacy about PRC's own global strategic image.

(e.g. many chinese diplomats are constantly parroting ´Peaceful Rise´ crap like: "Look how our per capita income is only a fifth of UK's, how can China be a superpower?" (Yeah baby, as if only some geeks would know that China's bank net assets are larger than Britain's debts and China's steel mills produce as much steel in five days than their British counterparts in an entire year.))

As a result many even reasonably educated people in the West are completely unaware about China's military capabilities let alone of PLA's nuclear arsenal (...an average citizen in the US, France or Germany would be likely surprised to learn that China actually has nuclear weapons capable to hit their country!).

Of course the reasonings behind the ´Peaceful Rise´ strategy are clear and I do not want to discuss this further but many people in the West would think twice about lavishing the Dalai Lama with honorary citizenships of their capitals (Paris, recently Warsaw) if they had a fair idea of how ugly things could turn out should their governments and elites continue with taunting and confronting China about essential interests. So let them have some fear about their pockets, their job and even a ´little more´ and Mr. ´liberal democrat´ or ´conservative republican´ will be sobered very quickly.

No one want to mess around with Russia because its nuke stockpile is world largest and published & wellknown.

While fans of western armforces are bragging how sophisticated their weapons is such aegis ship and stealth plane against the PLA, Russia is driving around the world with its ugly and outdated Slava-class cold war junky style ship. It knows it doesn't need the state of the art conventional weapon because it carry a major club behind its back.

If China's holding 5000 nuke warheads, India wouldn't try so hard ready to fight a war with China at the border.

Oh man, even little vietnam wants a piece of China. buying kilos and SU-30 to duke it out with CHina.

I think that's fail policy on China's part. They should build the world largest stockpile and publish them. At that point, even if CHina is flying a FC-1 around for its PLAF, opponents would be respect them alot more.

Official Chinese pronouncements have confirmed the existence in Tibet of the biggest uranium reserves in the world.

No wonder the west and its allies are so interested in Tibet.

@lilzz:
Actually the US has somewhat more strategic nukes than Russia but regarding tactical weapons Russia is numerically superior.

As for the ´Indian question´ I am also puzzled about Beijing's apparent complacency about this potential threat. Now the Indian Navy has started to build and operate nuclear attack submarines (SSN's) and around 2015 SSBN's will probably emerge so New Delhi will have acquired a secure second strike capability against China by then. May be Indian leaders would move on to strategic parity with China and possibly even further!

Possibly Beijing should indeed worry much less about North Korea than about ambitious rivals like India and an ´unchained´ Japan eagerly using North Korea's nuclear drive as a pretext for turning it's tons of reactor grade Plutonium into thousands of nukes!

but you have to look at the current policy needs. its not the cold war, China and the US dont have to go to war. aside from the current nuclear capabilities, China also has other means of deterring the US or any country in the world from fighting a full scale war with her. so the focus is on winning a limited and localized warfare.

Originally Posted by Violet Oboe

@lilzz:
Possibly Beijing should indeed worry much less about North Korea than about ambitious rivals like India and an ´unchained´ Japan eagerly using North Korea's nuclear drive as a pretext for turning it's tons of reactor grade Plutonium into thousands of nukes!

Japan is too small a area to sustain the effect of full out nuke attack, its small island area will get contaminated easily. They know it.

As for India, I don't think they have enough fissionable materials.

Large area is good buffer against possible nuke attack.

Heck, China should renegotiate with Outer Mongolia to get back at least of half of that land. China got robbed on that border settlement. There are only few millions mongolian and they took out such large chunk from china.

Originally Posted by pla101prc

but you have to look at the current policy needs. its not the cold war, China and the US dont have to go to war. aside from the current nuclear capabilities, China also has other means of deterring the US or any country in the world from fighting a full scale war with her. so the focus is on winning a limited and localized warfare.

At the same time, CHina should examine its policy why so many little and second /third rated countries are daring to ganging up on her.

Well no one has give me a good explanation why no body dare to touch russia.

You own that big stockpile, there wouldn't be any localized warfare to begin with.

Sure Japan would need a fleet of SSBN's for establishing a stable deterrence relationship with China and that is exactly the reason why currently all their talk about going nuclear is only just talk. But watch out if Tokyo suddenly starts developing a large ´civilian´ sub with nuclear propulsion...

Actually last year there was a moron called Saakashvili (the Georgian president) trying to screw around with Russia about some territory but he got quickly smashed up and his US overlords looked embarrassed the other way and did nothing. So having 7000 nukes is at least not that bad...