Any notion of using nukes between America and China is pure idiocy and will 100% lead to MAD because there is no other realistic possible outcome, and it won’t just be MAD between China and America, but global. Because once nukes start flying, everyone’s doomsday contingency plans kick in, which basically means you launch against everyone else.
As soon as nukes are used, you are basically on an inescapable mutual escalation chain reaction. American tactical nukes will be answered by Chinese megaton yield strategic nukes because China doesn’t bother with puny kiloton grade tactical nukes. That will mean America will feel like they are on the loosing end of this exchange and order more nuclear strikes.
At some point a full launch will be triggered, most of which will come from SSBNs. At that point China has little to loose and every reason to believe the British and French have launched against it as well (US, British and French SSBNs all patrol in the same spots that a pair of British and French boats famously collided), and so will launched a full civilisation ending strike against all 3. Seeing this, the British and French will launch against China and Russia, because if they are going down, they will be damned if they go leaving Russia as the only one left standing. At which point Russia will also launch against everyone including the US, because again they will not know who’s SSBNs launched against them, nor would they particularly care.
That is the inevitable final destination of any nuclear exchange between nuclear powers.
As such, I think all this sabre rattling over nukes is just a means to an end, and no one in the CIA or Pentagon should be idiotic enough to think such transparent psychops BS will cow China.
I think what they are trying to do is get China to reveal its actual nuclear arsenal size, because anyone who has even the most basic knowledge and understanding of modern Chinese strategic developments and trajectory can see that the ~300 ‘official’ figure is pure nonsense. Because the most obvious way to bury any such nuclear fantasies on the part of the US is for China to prove that it has second strike MAD capabilities, where even after a successful US first strike, China still comfortably have more than enough nukes to erase America and allies from the face of the earth. Then suddenly China will face all sorts of pressure to join arms control treaties. Which I think is the real point of this psychops programme - to get China to reveal it has thousands of nukes, and either use that to force China to join weapons control treaties as a means to limit Chinese weapons development, and/or use that to secure more funding to upgrade America’s own rapidly ageing nuclear arsenal in the face of stiff ideological opposition from the incumbent democrats.