After a summer of extraordinarily bad news on the exponential growth of China’s strategic nuclear forces, recent public statements by U.S. government officials indicate Beijing isn’t only building out its nuclear forces, but also diversifying it, by considering new, nontraditional weapons, as well as possibly reconsidering its nuclear deterrent doctrine.
That’s an awful lot of troubling news in a few short months—on top of the already tense relationship between Beijing and Washington over a whole raft of other issues.
While public details are currently few on this matter, two senior U.S. officials recently noted that China is looking at developing novel nuclear weapons, possibly similar in scope to the efforts of Russia.
Moscow has been developing several unique—or …
www.19fortyfive.com/2021/10/bad-news-chinas-nuclear-weapons-arsenal-is-growing-fast/
A plea deal involving a senior Chinese telecommunications executive that coincided with China’s release of Western hostages exposes a fundamental flaw in President Joe Biden’s approach to Beijing and raises the risk that authoritarian states seize more Americans.
“They took hostages,” Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat and senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “They defeated our criminal law by taking hostages. They took Canadian hostages. They took American hostages. And they were successful.”
That frank admission dovetails with Chinese propaganda about the release of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, who faced extradition from Canada on charges that she committed fraud in order to facilitate Iran’s circumvention of U.S. sanctions. Justice Department officials touted the …
www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/china-hostage-win-exposes-biden-weakness