New Pentagon Report on Chinese Military Forces
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| The 2009 Pentagon report shows hardly any changes of Chinese nuclear forces. |
By Hans M. Kristensen
The new annual report on Chinese military forces published by the Pentagon shows essentially no changes in China’s nuclear forces compared with the previous report from 2008.
Perhaps most interestingly, the report shows that China has not increased the number of new DF-31 and DF-31A ballistic missiles, a deployment that has to pick up if the recent Defense Intelligence Agency projection that China’s “number of ICBM warheads capable of reaching the United States could more than double in the next 15 years” is to come true.
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The Pentagon’s new report provides additional context and useful perspectives on events in China that took place over the past year.