While claiming that the People's Liberation Army is unable to compete against the United States in a full-scale nuclear war, Vasiliy Kashin from the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies stated that China has the ability to wipe Japan from the face of the Earth with its projected arsenal of at least 600 nuclear warheads in ten years' time, reports the Voice of Russia.
China does not have enough advanced ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and strategic bombers to match the United States, Kashin said the only way the country can defend itself from a nuclear attack is to accumulate as many warheads as it can. If the current trend continues, the PLA will have at least 600 nuclear warheads in the next 10 years, Kashin said — more than Great Britain and France but fewer than the United States and Russia.
With the United States reducing the number of its warheads, it is conceivable that China may have the same number at some point in the future, Kashin said. But if China is unable to threaten all the major cities in the continental United States, its warheads are still capable of completely destroying US allies in the Asia-Pacific region such as Japan and South Korea since the DF-31A missile with the range to reach those nations entered service with the PLA back in 2006.
The Tokyo-based Japan Military Review meanwhile stated that China has three major submarine bases — in Shazikou in Qingdao, Xiaoping island in Dalian and Yalong Bay of Hainan. From the Shazikou base, the PLA Navy's ballistic missile submarines can sail to the northern Bohai Bay, the exclusive economic zone between China and North Korea.
A JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile with a range of 12,000 kilometers launched from here could reach all major cities in the United States including the eastern seaboard. It would be harder for the US and its allies to detect the movements of Chinese submarine in Bohai Bay since it is within Chinese and North Korean waters, the report said.
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140129000027&cid=1101
