Michael Richardson: China tips the nuclear balance

China is certainly spending increasingly large amounts of money on its Army, Navy and Air Force. One important aim is to ensure that they can capture Taiwan if it declares independence and fend off any attempt by United States or other outside forces to protect the island.

Chinese weapons acquisitions, both foreign and home-made, also suggest that Beijing wants to be able to project conventional power abroad in future, partly to safeguard its critical energy and trade lifelines at sea.

But is China putting equal effort into improving its strategic nuclear forces, giving it the ability to annihilate any country anywhere in the world that attacks it? In other words, is China moving from limited deterrence to full-fledged nuclear power?

In its recent annual report on China's military, the US Defence Department said several developments had surprised American analysts, including the pace and scope of the programme to modernise Chinese long-range nuclear forces. However, the surprise must be that development has not been quicker - as the Pentagon frequently predicted.

Consider the current imbalance. The US and Russia each have about 6000 nuclear weapons in their operational stockpiles, with several thousand more in reserve. China has fewer than 400.

The US and Russia can strike targets in any part of the world by using an impressive array of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, submarines and aircraft. China has approximately 85 nuclear-capable land-based missiles. But no more than 20 can reach the US.

The Chinese bombers that carry nuclear weapons are based on 1950s designs, have limited range and speed, and would have difficulty penetrating modern air defence systems. China has just one operational submarine that can fire long-range nuclear weapons. Even after a four-year overhaul, it has never sailed beyond China's regional waters or conducted a real deterrent patrol.

However, the Pentagon report predicts that some significant enhancements of Chinese nuclear capability are imminent. If correct, these will enable Beijing to hit targets in the US with land-based intercontinental missiles and similar nuclear-tipped missiles fired from submarines.

From next year, China is expected to deploy DF-31A missiles with a range of over 11,270km, enough to cover all the US.

China already has an estimated 20 CSS-4 long-range missiles in underground silos. But with a range of around 8500km, they can reach barely half of the US. The new missiles can be moved around on vehicles and use solid, not liquid, fuel, making them more difficult to detect and quicker to launch than the older liquid-fuel, silo-based missiles.

Moreover, a new class of nuclear-powered submarine is expected to be armed with an advanced sea-based variant of the DF31, known as the JL-2, between 2007 and 2010. The JL-2 has a range of at least 8000km. Assuming the JIN-class sub works better than its sole nuclear missile-carrying predecessor, the Xia, it would be able to hide at sea not too far from China and still cover the whole of the US.

The new long-range missiles will give China what it has long lacked - the assurance of being able to strike back even if it is hit by nuclear weapons.

The missiles are believed to be more accurate than earlier ones and can use multiple warheads to hit different targets, giving them similar capabilities to US and Russian nuclear weapons.

Why is China increasing the number and improving the quality of its nuclear forces? US readings of growing Chinese power and military modernisation in recent years have reportedly prompted a shift in US nuclear targeting priorities away from Russia and towards China. Reflecting that trend, an increasing number of US submarines armed with nuclear missiles have been shifted from the Atlantic and based in the Pacific.

China is acutely aware of this trend. It is also concerned that the successful development of US defences against incoming ballistic missiles might degrade the deterrent effect of China's current nuclear counter-strike force against America.

Japan has tense political relations with China and could build nuclear weapons quickly, probably in months, if it decided to do so. It is an active participant in the US-led missile defence programme.

India, too, has long felt threatened by China's nuclear missiles and remains way of China despite improving ties. India is now developing a counter-force. It has a small but growing stockpile of nuclear weapons as well as long-range missiles that could carry them deep into southern China.

In the not-too-distant future, Indian missiles with nuclear warheads will be able to cover the whole of China. India has also expressed interest in missile defence at a time when its military links with the US are becoming increasingly close.

Paradoxically, having more and better nuclear-armed missiles may still the debate in Chinese military circles about whether to change the long-standing policy that China will never be the first to use its nuclear weapons. This debate about the "no first use" policy surfaced publicly last year when a senior Chinese general said in Hong Kong that if the US attacked China with its overwhelmingly superior conventional forces, Beijing might have to respond with nuclear arms.

China is far from nuclear parity with the US; being a bit more equal may help build Chinese confidence in the deterrent effect by reassuring Beijing that whatever happens some of its missiles would get through and strike their targets.

But this is a sensitive equation. If any of the players miscalculate, a dangerous arms race could ensue.

* The writer, a former Asia Editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.