China’s Xi has ultimate power for nuclear attack, study concludes

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

Chinese leader Xi Jinping holds ultimate authority for launching a nuclear attack, and recently formed regional military commands are probably not in the chain of command for deciding on such strikes.

That’s the conclusion of a rare, government-sponsored report on Chinese nuclear command and control systems published March 11 by the China Aerospace Studies Institute, a U.S. Air Force think tank based in Alabama.

Mr. Xi holds three titles: president, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission — the party military oversight organ that has sole authority for launching nuclear missiles or missile-firing bombers.

The report warns that China’s mingling of its nuclear and conventional missile stocks is destabilizing and could lead to an inadvertent nuclear exchange if U.S. missile-warning sensors mistake one of China’s conventionally armed, long-range missiles for an incoming nuclear attack.

Interspersing nuclear and conventional forces by the military in China “creates risks for inadvertent escalation,” the report said.

“This is particularly dangerous considering that the [People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force] often stores nuclear and conventional stockpiles at the same locations, sometimes co-mingling its nuclear and conventional forces within the same units.”

The Chinese military rapidly expanded its nuclear forces in the past decade with scores of new warheads, and large numbers of missiles, submarines and bombers.

The Chinese nuclear arsenal increased from around 250 warheads several years ago to over 500 warheads today and is on track for 1,000 weapons in the near future. Much of the increase is the result of three large missile fields in western China where up to 360 new, triple-warhead missiles are deployed, officials in the U.S. Strategic Command have told Congress.

“China has the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and according to the [Defense Department] is on track to roughly double the size of its stockpile,” the Air Force report stated. “Moreover, China is making major investments in the size and survivability of its nuclear forces.”

The investments include adding road- and rail-mobile basing for intercontinental missiles, a bomber-launched ballistic missile, new strategic bombers and new ballistic missile submarines. New command and control systems are also being added to the forces, including long-range missile warning sensors, fiber-optic communications, new satellites and special underground nuclear command bunkers known as “dragon lairs.” The number and scale of the deeply buried, hardened facilities is increasing, the report said.

The study concludes that the Chinese army follows a strategically ambiguous policy regarding its nuclear forces and when they will be used, officially claiming China has a no-first-use policy regarding nuclear weapons but also leaving open the use of nuclear strikes in response to U.S. precision-guided conventional attacks.

The main nuclear force is the Chinese military’s Strategic Rocket Force, which the report said has “more recently been observed training for both nuclear and conventional missions in ’he chang jianbei’ brigades, with drills involving conventional precision strikes immediately followed by nuclear counter strikes,” the report said, using the Chinese phrase for “having both nuclear and conventional” capabilities.

The study is the first to examine how China’s secretive military forces are organized for nuclear war. The report is based on documents from China, declassified U.S. intelligence reports and commercial satellite imagery. It also provides detailed maps and locations of six main Chinese nuclear missile bases spread out around the country and largely constructed underground.

China has plans for waging nuclear war in the future, the think tank study says: “The development of extensive hardened facilities, including multiple alternate national command centers with the necessary communications facilities needed to direct campaigns, suggests that plans exist for continuity of government and command and control in a nuclear conflict.”

The report also identifies the central storage location for nuclear warheads, known as Base 67, in central Taibai County in Shaanxi province. The maps and bases would be key targets for U.S. nuclear war planners at the Strategic Command.

The missile forces, the mainstay of China’s nuclear power, increased in size from 22 launch brigades in 2005 to 39 launch brigades in 2020, the report said. According to the report, the United States “de-targeted” its nuclear forces away from China and toward the open ocean under a 1998 agreement under President Bill Clinton. Whether China targeted its missiles away from the United States in response is not clear, the report said.

“According to authoritative Chinese sources the PLARF generally advises on, rather than directly selects, targets for nuclear strikes,” the report said. A “Supreme Command” within the CMC Joint Operations Command Center in Beijing, headed by Mr. Xi, selects nuclear strike targets.

At least two other nuclear command centers were built in Shanxi and Hubei provinces. China also has six alert levels beginning with a standing war preparedness alert up to a formal order to fire missiles.

“Although the supporting architecture and delivery methods for a nuclear campaign have expanded significantly, China’s doctrine surrounding nuclear use remains opaque,” the report concluded. “China publicly maintains a no-first-use policy for its nuclear forces but may consider a conventional attack on its nuclear stockpile to be worthy of nuclear retaliation.”

Havana syndrome findings questioned

Debate continues to surround the mysterious ailment known as Havana syndrome and whether the injuries inflicted on U.S. diplomats, intelligence personnel and military officials overseas are the result of an action by a hostile power and whether they caused brain damage in those who fell ill.

The latest annual threat assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence made public last week repeated earlier U.S. intelligence conclusions that no foreign powers were behind the incidents first experienced by U.S. personnel in Cuba in 2016 and later China that left U.S. government personnel disabled. The assessment stated that what it calls “anomalous health incidents” continue to be studied, but that most intelligence agencies “have concluded that it is very unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible for the reported [incidents].”

The report noted that spy agencies have varying levels of confidence in that conclusion due to “gaps” in the intelligence gathered on foreign adversaries.

The DNI analysis was followed by what some critics say was a flawed and suspect study by the National Institutes of Health that concluded there is “no significant evidence of MRI-detectable brain injury” in those who experienced Havana syndrome.

Researchers reached that conclusion despite the fact that “these individuals have symptoms that are real, distressing and very difficult to treat,” said Dr. Leighton Chan, NIH Clinical Center acting chief scientific officer and lead author of the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week.

A nongovernment analyst close to the issue who spoke on background because of previous government work said the NIH finding appeared to be part of an attempt to cover up the issue. Hundreds of federal employees and U.S. military members have been affected by the syndrome, and most believe they were targeted with some class of new weapons that do in fact cause brain injury and damage.

A countervailing argument was published in 2020 by Stanford medicine professor David Relman, who wrote in JAMA that “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases, especially in individuals with the distinct early symptoms.”

“Given the circumstances, a coordinated national research effort that examines the cellular, tissue and clinical effects of focused, pulsed forms of electromagnetic and acoustic energy is warranted,” he said.

So far, no such research effort has been carried out by the U.S. government.

U.S. intelligence agencies, unable to determine the actual cause, largely dismissed the Havana syndrome claims and contended the victims’ symptoms were due to pre-existing medical conditions or environmental factors. The afflicted reported experiencing sudden unexplained head pressure, head or ear pain, dizziness and other, often debilitating symptoms.

The Pentagon is working to protect troops from the syndrome, and Special Operations troops have designated the condition as “UBI,” for unconventionally acquired brain injury, a term that contradicts the finding of the NIH study.

Lawmakers want to outlaw Chinese political warfare

Two Republican members of Congress this week introduced legislation that would seek to outlaw those in the United States supporting Chinese “political warfare.”

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana introduced companion bills in the Senate and House that would impose sanctions on people or groups engaged in political warfare against the U.S. government on behalf of a foreign power.

The legislation is targeted at China and would require the secretary of state to sanction China’s United Front Work Department, the shadowy Chinese Communist Party unit that carries out overseas influence operations.

“The Chinese Communist Party has proven that it will spread disinformation and lie any way it can — from the oppression of Uyghurs, to the origins of COVID-19, to it accessing the data of Americans who use TikTok,” Mr. Cotton said in a statement. “Any person or group who spreads the Chinese Communists’ propaganda, like UFWD, should face sanctions.”

Mr. Banks added: “The United Front Work Department has targeted our universities, state and local lawmakers, business associations and even Congress. This bill gives America the necessary tools to strike back against malign Communist Party influence on U.S. soil.”

• Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.