China lodges protest with US over criticism of nuclear build-up

Beijing on Friday lodged a protest with Washington, over a Pentagon report on military development which claimed that China has expanded its nuclear force at a high pace.

"China has lodged solemn representations with the US over its groundless accusations about China's nuclear arsenal in a Pentagon report and interference in China's domestic affairs including Taiwan question," said Wu Qian, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense.

"The Pentagon report is full of bias and distorts China's defence and military strategies to hype the "China threat," Wu was quoted as saying by Global Times.

The Pentagon's report titled "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China (PRC) 2021", said that "the accelerating pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027.

"The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020," the report added.

China is investing in, and expanding, the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces, according to the Pentagon.

China has possibly already established a nascent "nuclear triad" with the development of a nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities, the report read.

On Thursday, China Foreign Ministry said that the Pentagon report is full of prejudice and disregarded facts that claimed Beijing is rapidly expanding the number of its nuclear delivery platforms.

"US is hyping up China's 'nuclear threat' is nothing but a trick to manipulate words and confuse the public," said Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Wang Wenbin.

( With inputs from ANI )