MILITARY NEWS - Meghann Myers and Joe Gould - INTRODUÇÃO EM PORTUGUÊS CÉSAR TONHEIRO - NOV 29, 2022
A China continua sua expansão nuclear acelerada e tem um estoque estimado de mais de 400 ogivas nucleares – que ainda são menos do que as 3.750 armas nucleares dos Estados Unidos.
Nesse ritmo, a terceira maior potência armada nuclear provavelmente colocará um estoque de 1.500 ogivas até 2035, sua meta para a “modernização basicamente completa” de suas forças de defesa, disse o relatório. Os EUA reconheceram este mês que a China está colocando um novo míssil balístico intercontinental em seis de seus submarinos movidos a energia nuclear, com o objetivo de ameaçar o território continental dos EUA. O alto funcionário da defesa disse na segunda-feira que os submarinos da classe Jin da China estão em patrulha com os mísseis JL-3, que os permitem atingir os EUA sem viajar tão longe das costas chinesas protegidas. No ano passado, a China adicionou três novos campos de silos ICBM para um total de pelo menos 300 novos silos, disse o novo relatório. O lançamento pela China de cerca de 135 mísseis balísticos para teste e treinamento no ano passado “foi mais do que o resto do mundo combinado, excluindo o emprego de mísseis balísticos em zonas de conflito”, disse o relatório.
CÉSAR TONHEIRO -
MILITARY TIMES - NOV 29, 2022
A new report from the Pentagon details China’s more provocative and aggressive actions toward Taiwan, but Defense Department officials say those actions do not mean an invasion will happen soon.
The annual China Military Power Report sent to Congress this week noted that the country’s military overhaul is continuing apace, including the modernization of its capabilities and the expansion of its nuclear arsenal. It comes amid heightened tension between China and Taiwan, and as President Joe Biden is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming months.
“I don’t see any kind of imminent indications of an invasion,” a senior defense official told reporters Monday. “We’re definitely very focused on this level of more intimidating and coercive behavior, and watching closely to see how things unfold.”
The report reiterates that China is the only country with the will and the military capacity, while still getting up to speed, to challenge what it describes as the U.S.-led “world order.”
The country has set 2049 as its goal for achieving a “world-class” military that could presumably rival U.S. capabilities, to be achieved through weapons modernization, expanded military basing and advanced warfare capabilities, to include information operations.
China is also getting into the multidomain game, according to the report, dubbing their “new core operational concept” with the eerily familiar “MultiDomain Precision Warfare.”
Like the U.S. doctrine, this approach involves advanced networking capabilities. Specifically, it “incorporates advances in big data and artificial intelligence to rapidly identify key vulnerabilities in the U.S. operational system and then combine joint forces across domains to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities,” the report reads.
Much of the focus on modernization is aimed at Taiwan.
Taiwan is squarely in China’s crosshairs, with an increase in 2021 of activity in the Taiwan strait, “to include increased flights into Taiwan’s self-declared Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and conducting island seizure exercises,” the report found.
China’s goal of modernization by 2027, to include “mechanization, informatization and intelligentization,” would make its military “more credible” in its efforts to bring Taiwan under its control.
Beyond Taiwan, China is also likely looking into developing more overseas bases, beyond its current hub in Djibouti.
“The PRC has likely considered Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola, and Tajikistan, among other places, as locations for PLA military logistics facilities,” according to the report.
Nuclear weapons and beyond
China is continuing its accelerated nuclear expansion and has an estimated stockpile of more than 400 nuclear warheads ― which still number fewer than America’s 3,750 nuclear weapons. At this pace, the third-largest nuclear armed power is likely to field a stockpile of 1,500 warheads by 2035, its target for “basically complete modernization” of its defense forces, the report said.
The country had kept its nuclear arsenal in the low hundreds for years, but last year’s report said it was on track to have at least 1,000 by 2030, essentially tripling its arsenal within a decade. It’s also building a land-sea-air triad of delivery vehicles similar to those of the U.S. and Russia ― including the H-6N air-to-air refuelable bomber, which it unveiled in 2019.