BEIJING, December 6. /TASS/. The US policy course toward upgrading its nuclear triad and deploying more tactical weapons has lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, Spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry Senior Colonel Tan Kefei said on Tuesday.
Commenting on the Pentagon’s report on Chinese military development, Tan said, "In the report, the United States actively speculates about the modernization by China of its nuclear forces and makes absurd assumptions, while, in effect, it is most essential that they should review their own policy on nuclear weapons."
"The Unites States possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and has been updating its nuclear triad, while actively developing plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in the front line, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and proliferating nukes under trilateral security agreements between the United States, Great Britain and Australia, thus increasingly turning into a major source of nuclear conflict every day," the Chinese official said.
The spokesperson for China’s top brass emphasized that "China is firmly committed to its defensive nuclear strategy and we have always advocated that China will never be the first to use nuclear weapons, while keeping its nuclear forces at a minimum needed to ensure its national security."
In its annual report on China’s military capability, released last week, the Pentagon proceeds from the fact that China is capable of building some 1,5000 nuclear warheads and completing the modernization of its armed forces by 2035. The document was submitted to Congress. Its authors assume that China might have accelerated the production of nuclear weapons.