China’s Nuclear Forces, With Fiona S. Cunningham

LINDSAY:
Welcome to The President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States. I'm Jim Lindsay, director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is China's nuclear forces. With me to discuss China's nuclear weapons program is Fiona Cunningham. 

 

Fiona is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. She has held fellowships at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Stanford University, Harvard University, and Renmin University of China. She has written extensively on technology and conflict in East Asia, and she did fieldwork in China from 2015 to 2017. Fiona, thank you for joining me.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Jim, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

 

LINDSAY:
Listen, Fiona, there has been a lot of talk in recent months, as you know, about the size and extent of China's defense buildup generally. But also a lot of talk about the buildup of China's nuclear weapons program specifically. Can you just describe for us what China has been doing?

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Sure. I think one of the things that's for me, very important to note from the outset in understanding China's nuclear buildup, is that they're starting from a pretty low base. While the rest of China's new military forces have been building up very rapidly over the last three decades, there has been much less of a marked acceleration in its nuclear forces up until, I would say, around about the 2018, 2019 period.

 

When I think U.S. intelligence officials started to ring the alarm bells that something was changing with China's nuclear forces. I'd say China's nuclear forces have changed on a couple of dimensions: the size, the accuracy, the diversity, and the readiness of the force. To give though a little bit of context on what all of those things mean. First of all, I think throughout most of the post-Cold War era, China's nuclear forces had been sitting at around about 200 warheads and recently-

 

LINDSAY:
Just put that in perspective for me, Fiona, that compares with how many held by the United States and Russia?

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Sure. The United States and Russia, at least in their strategic-deployed nuclear weapons, is up at over 1,500. If memory serves me correctly, around about that number. You are talking about a significantly smaller nuclear arsenal.

 

LINDSAY:
Okay. Those are the warheads that are deployed, not the warheads they have. They have other warheads either set for being retired or in strategic reserve.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Absolutely. Often you'll see people throw around the number that China's nuclear forces are ten times smaller or are eight times smaller than the United States, depending upon whether you count all of the U.S.'s stockpile of warheads, as well as those that are waiting to be dismantled. Then there's also this interesting question of counting deployed nuclear warheads, because historically, China has had a practice of keeping its nuclear warheads and its nuclear delivery systems demated in peacetime. Which means the warheads are sitting in a depo under a mountain in the center of China, and they may be many hundreds of kilometers away from where their delivery systems happen to be. 

 

When we talk about the United States and Russia having a certain number of deployed strategic warheads, we're talking about ones where you have the warhead and the delivery system already mated.

 

LINDSAY:
Is my understanding correct, Fiona, that the Chinese have historically relied on liquid-fueled missiles for delivering a strategic payload, whereas the United States and Russia rely on solid-fuel missiles? Difference being that liquid-fueled missiles take a while to actually fuel them. They're not sitting around with a full gas tank, so you can give advanced notice to satellites.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah, absolutely. Actually, China's been moving away from having liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles for some years now. I would say since roughly speaking, the early 2000s, as they started to deploy their DF-31 series missiles, they were not only solid-fueled, but they were also road mobile.

 

A lot of Chinese liquid-fueled missiles used to sit in silos, and that would make them relatively vulnerable if you were seeing them being fueled or those that were rolled out. But it has been moving to solid-fueled missiles now for some years. Yeah, much more ready to go.

 

LINDSAY:
The Chinese are requiring more warheads. I believe the Pentagon is predicting that by 2030, they may have in the order of 1,000 warheads. I'm not sure what grounds that projection is based on. But you mentioned there are changes in China's nuclear forces that involve not just size, but also accuracy. Can you talk a little bit about that?

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Sure. I'll just say one other thing really quickly, I think, about the size of the arsenal. The latest Pentagon military report actually put the size of China's nuclear arsenal, they estimated that it could go up to 1,500 warheads by 2035. But most non-government experts estimate that China's current fiscal material stockpiles.

 

The materials that China would need to use to fabricate its nuclear warheads, basically tops out the arsenal at about 1,000 warheads. That's assuming if you go to a higher number than 1,000, that China has to start producing fissile material. In terms of the other changes, and I think you were asking about the accuracy or the readiness, Jim?

 

LINDSAY:
Well, we can talk about both.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Okay. I think the media reports that China's military puts out, suggested that two of its most advanced missiles that have come online recently, its DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missile, and its DF-41 intercontinental range ballistic missile, both of which are road mobile, which means they drive around the Chinese hinterland on trucks. But both of those were significantly more accurate than previous intercontinental and theater range missiles in China's arsenal. 

 

The accuracy of the weapons is important, because it provides China with better options to conduct limited nuclear strikes if it wants to incentivize an adversary to not use all of its nuclear weapons in retaliation. I think that's one other important piece.

 

LINDSAY:
Just to draw that point out though, Fiona.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Sure.

 

LINDSAY:
If you're talking about trying to destroy cities, accuracy becomes less important.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Absolutely.

 

LINDSAY:
If you're interested in taking out so-called hardened targets, missile silos on the other side, accuracy becomes critical.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah, absolutely. But also I think it's important for theater range nuclear forces as well, right? Because most of the time, I think when nuclear strategists talk about limited strikes and limited nuclear campaigns.

 

They're thinking about the use of shorter range, lower yield missiles that would be used in a theater of conflict to destroy, let's say, a military base or that kind of a target. There the accuracy may be much more important because you really are trying to keep the nuclear exchange limited.

 

LINDSAY:
Maybe we should just do a bit of a glossary here.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Sure.

 

LINDSAY:
When we're talking about theater or short-range missiles, we're talking ones that are relatively short range, let's say under 300 miles. Then you have intermediate can reach targets further away but cannot reach, generally speaking, another continent. Then we have strategic, which are ones that would go from one continent to the other. Historically, thinking of Soviet to Russia missiles hitting the United States or U.S. missiles hitting the Soviet Union in Russia. Okay, enough defining our terms.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Sure.

 

LINDSAY:
Let's get back to our conversation.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
I think the accuracy is important for giving China the ability to conduct limited nuclear strikes. It's important to note though that China has since 1965, it has had a no-first-use policy for its nuclear weapons. It has also matched that in at least the older literature that we have available, describing the kinds of campaigns that China's nuclear forces trained for and planned for, which only describe a counterattack campaign and not a first use campaign.

 

I think in some ways, the most likely application of more accurate theater range nuclear forces for China, is in campaigns of limited nuclear retaliation rather than limited first use. Which is the approach that I think most strategists think that Russia may engage in and has been the source of a lot of concern with how it might use its nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Turning to maybe some of the other, I think, features that are important with China's nuclear modernization, is also the readiness of the force.

 

Before I talked a little bit about the way that China has historically kept its warheads and delivery systems demated in peacetime. In separate places, requiring an order of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission to actually just make those warheads, as well as to use them. There have been some reports from the Pentagon suggesting that China has been conducting peacetime patrols of some of its road-mobile missiles, but it remains unclear how long they're doing so and for what purpose. It's only a small portion of the force.

 

There's also some speculation that China's newly discovered missile silos in the Chinese hinterland. In, I think, I'll get my dates incorrect here, but I think 2021, open-source researchers found evidence using satellite imagery, commercial satellite imagery, that China was constructing these very large missile silos in its hinterland, which would give it, I think, collectively around 300 silos altogether. There are questions also as to whether when those silos are filled. Obviously, we can't observe that at this point in time, but whether they will also be kept at a higher state of readiness than this peacetime, demated force that we're familiar with.

 

LINDSAY:
Okay. We have the Chinese drilling a lot of holes in the ground, most of them right now are empty. It's unknown when they're going to be filled and what they might be filled with. One thing I haven't heard you mention, Fiona, is hydrosonic as in hydrosonic missiles. There was a big to-do here in the United States after reports came out last summer that China had conducted at least two tests of hydrosonic missiles.

 

I think that prompted Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, to say the test came close to producing a Sputnik moment. Could you tell us first off, what are hydrosonic weapon? What was the Chinese tested that caught the attention of General Milley and a lot of other people in the defense establishment?

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Sure. I am not a technical expert, but what I understand is important about hypersonic missiles is that they have unpredictable trajectories when they are reentering on their downward trajectory, as they're reaching their targets. That makes them very important because those unpredictable reentry trajectories make them much harder to intercept with something like a missile defense system. That's one of the reasons, I think, why there's in general a lot of concern and interest on both the U.S.- Chinese side about hypersonic missile technology.

 

What was tested back in again I think 2021, was a combination of an orbital bombardment system and a hypersonic missile we believe. That means that China launched a payload, it entered an orbital plane in space or a partial orbital plane. It went rather than just up and out into space, it actually was orbiting the earth and then reentered with a hypersonic payload. That, I think, generated a lot of concern, because it was a technological feat that my understanding is the U.S. was not aware that China was up to at that point in time.

 

The actual applications of that system though, I think are a little bit unclear as to exactly what it would buy China in terms of its nuclear forces. China has this history of testing experimental systems, and they're not necessarily deploying them until something happens in the future where they think that they need them. A good example of this is that China tested enhanced radiation weapons in the 1980s, successfully developed that technology. That is a type of tactical or battlefield nuclear weapon. China never deployed it.

 

Similarly, it developed multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles or MIRVs, which is a technology the U.S. and Soviet Union, and now Russia, have had for a number of years. Where you would be able to launch on a single missile, a number of different warheads that independently are guided to their targets. China has had that capability for some, roughly speaking, a decade before it ended up deploying it on some of its intercontinental range ballistic missiles in approximately 2015, '16.

 

What it buys China, I think, is a whole other question in terms of what this technology can do to give it a better capability to, for example, overcome U.S. missile defenses in the future, I think, would probably be the most obvious option. But there are lots of ways that you can defeat an orbital system, as well as other types of missiles on different trajectories heading towards the United States or one of its allies.

 

LINDSAY:
I agree with you there that the great concern has a lot to do with the ability potentially the Chinese to evade U.S. missile defenses because it would allow you to attack from a different direction. Right now, America's missile defenses are oriented west and north. In theory, if you were to have this fractional, orbital bombardment system, you might come with an attack from the south. Although at the same time, that if you have submarine launch ballistic missiles, you can already attack from directions other than where U.S. missile defense systems are aimed.

 

Again, that's because U.S. missile defense systems have in theory, been designed against the potential threat that would come from North Korea or perhaps Iran if it were to gain a nuclear weapons capability, which it seems to be close to. One thing I'm really curious about, Fiona, is why do you think China has decided after nearly half a century of being content with a rather small nuclear force, to basically modernize and increase the size of its forces to become, for lack of a better description, more like the United States, more like Russia?

 

CUNNINGHAM:
I think this is the million-dollar question. Despite having studied Chinese nuclear forces for a really long time and scratching my head, and a lot of my colleagues who have been watching China's nuclear forces for a long time have been scratching our heads. I'll give you my best guesses of what I think are the most likely possibilities I hear. The first is I think and I'll just say I think there's a way of categorizing these possibilities into those that are strategic, so they're designed to help China do something. And non-strategic, so they have to do with internal dynamics, and those that represent some continuity and those that represent some change. That's how I would categorize the possibilities. 

 

Starting with those that are strategic and represent some continuity in what China is doing. I think one of the clear possibilities is that China is reacting to the continued development of some of the U.S.'s capabilities that could hold its nuclear arsenal at risk. We were just talking about missile defense. As much as the United States, it makes very clear that its missile defenses are oriented towards North Korea and Iran, that is not comforting and doesn't tend to persuade China that that is the reason for the U.S. building up.

 

LINDSAY:
Nor the Russians.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah, and the Russians. They very much share, the Chinese and the Russians, this perception of missile defense. But in addition to that, China has been watching other things the U.S. has been doing, including its development of conventional strike capabilities that might be able to degrade its nuclear forces. The sensing capabilities that might make it easier for the U.S. to find China's nuclear forces and some of these left of launch ideas.

 

This idea that you would try and attack an adversary's nuclear forces before they end up being launched. In particular, the use or the claim, or possibility that the U.S. could have been using offensive cyber capabilities to degrade the effectiveness of North Korea's missiles. That was something that I think people paid attention to in China. One possibility reacting to what the U.S. is doing, but still this requires some sort of a step change that something changed around that 2018-ish period, where China suddenly got much more concerned about what was going on with U.S. capabilities.

 

Some of the things that might have changed, include Chinese analysts may have become less concerned about running an arms race with the U.S.. That had always been a reason why they had been quite careful not to build up their nuclear forces. Seeing that this is something the U.S. did to arms race with its adversaries and to avoid falling into the same trap as the Soviet Union. China's strategists used to express quite a lot of confidence that massive retaliation could deter an adversary's limited nuclear strikes. That attitude may also be changing within China, especially as the U.S. has started to look again at some of the non-strategic nuclear weapons. In particular, having low yield submarine launched ballistic missiles, there was a way really of deterring some of Russia's limited nuclear strikes. We could see that being revisited in China. 

 

Finally, given the fact that the U.S. China relationship overall has really deteriorated, China's nuclear planners might think that they simply need to inflict more damage on the United States than they used to have the same effect. That's one possibility.

 

LINDSAY:
Got it. Obviously, some of these things can be overdetermined in that there could be a bunch of driving forces going along. Also, elements of national prestige could enter into this as well. But I do think it's clear that China is moving away from what we used to call a minimum deterrent posture, having the ability to inflict grievous pain by attacking cities and that would provide deterrence.

 

But I'm curious, have you seen, Fiona, changes in the way Chinese strategists talk about nuclear weapons? Have we seen elements of changes in Chinese written nuclear doctrine? In that mix, are the Chinese simply worried about U.S. nuclear capability, or are they also worried about the Russians to their north and the Indians to their south?

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah. I think there's a lot of important considerations to unpack in there. The first thing I will just add is that I think China's nuclear forces have always, their force planning principles have always been dynamic to that of an adversary. They've never said, "There's just a minimum set number of targets we need to hold at risk, and that's that." But rather, have always had this dynamic approach. We should expect that if adversary capabilities change, then Chinese nuclear forces are going to change in tandem.

 

But that said, I think one of the things that to me, is really interesting is that I haven't seen a whole lot of significant changes in the way that Chinese strategists, who are often writing about these issues, are talking about their concerns with U.S. counterforce capabilities. That makes me wonder whether one of the other reasons or other things that could be driving China's nuclear modernization, might actually be changes in the internal organizational dynamics of who actually makes decisions about nuclear forces within China.

 

This is on the non-strategic side of the house. We should talk about Taiwan too. But on the non-strategic side of the house, in terms of these things that China could be driving its buildup, I think there are two really important ones. One is that traditionally, historically, the top leaders views of nuclear weapons have been the single most important variable explaining China's nuclear strategy and its continuity. I think Taylor Fravel and Evan Medeiros wrote about this in great article in 2010. I think that leadership level belief still really plays an important role. 

 

But if Xi Jinping simply has different views about the utility of nuclear weapons, including that they create political leverage, that they are a tool of prestige that he thinks they play a different role, that would be another reason why we might see changes in China's nuclear arsenal. But also you may see those strategists who we are used to reading and understanding how they think about China's nuclear arsenal.

 

I think there are some signs that they may have less influence over decision-making within China at the moment. In which case, we need to look much more I think at what the People's Liberation Army is writing and thinking about when it comes to nuclear weapons. The only problem is though, their views are quite difficult to access. We have fewer and fewer insights in the past couple of years, when both political relations with the United States and travel because of the coronavirus pandemic have really made it difficult to see if there are big changes in how perhaps the military branches are thinking and talking about nuclear weapons use.

 

LINDSAY:
I take your point that there could also be a bureaucratic imperative driving weapons acquisition. It's not unknown in other countries.

 

But you invited me to ask you about Taiwan, Fiona, so I'm going to ask you about Taiwan. How does that figure into the conversation we are having here?

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Sure. I think there is a possibility that one of the things that's driving China's nuclear modernization, is the increasing prospects of an armed conflict taking place over Taiwan. We've heard a number of, I think, U.S. Intelligence officials say Xi Jinping has instructed the PLA to be ready to conduct a military campaign by 2027. One possibility is that China is also building up a stronger set of nuclear forces.

 

So that if it is going to have to be ready to conduct a conventional campaign against Taiwan, it has a nuclear force that provides a strong shield or a strong backdrop against the United States. Or for example, threatening nuclear weapons use or leaning on its nuclear superiority as a way of trying to pressure China in the conventional domain. That's one possibility that is taking place.

 

I think one of the reasons why I hesitate a little bit to accept that possibility, is that I think China's strategic deterrence capabilities and its conventional military strategy have quite different planning processes, and they've been kept largely decoupled. Again, I'm going to cite Taylor Fravel's work here where he shows that China's conventional military strategy is responsive to unity within the party.

 

It's also responsive to what it observes about other people's wars. Some of the research that I'm in the midst of doing at the moment, I published a little bit of it last year in International Security, shows that China's strategic deterrence capabilities are much more responsive to political crises in its relationship with the United States, especially in the post-Cold War era.

 

That what China's approach to strategic deterrence for most of the post-Cold War era has been, was really to think about nuclear weapons as being the shield. But then it's non-nuclear weapons that could have strategic effects being the spear. The things that it thinks of using to threaten escalation, put pressure on an adversary in a conventional conflict. It's offensive cyber capabilities used strategically. It's conventional missile force, it's counterspace weapons. These are the things that China has always thought about using to compensate for conventional weaknesses or shortcomings. Another possibility is that China's stronger nuclear forces could be there in order to shore up its use or its threats to use these information age or non-nuclear strategic weapons to threaten escalation, including in a Taiwan conflict.

 

One of the reasons to wrap things up in a bow a little bit. One of the reasons why I am a little bit hesitant to accept the possibility that a Taiwan timeline is driving China's buildup, is the fact that these processes of conventional strategy and nuclear strategy, and other strategic deterrence capabilities have been separated. I'd want to see some more evidence that those two planning processes are being knitted together more closely.

 

If that is indeed what's happening, then I think that's definitely a strong possibility worth considering that could be driving the buildup.

 

LINDSAY:
I take that point, Fiona, and I will note that if the purpose of the Chinese government was to get the attention of the U.S. military establishment, it has succeeded in doing so. For several years now, the U.S. government has tried to entice the Chinese to become involved in so-called strategic stability talks, to begin to try to work out some mutual framework for understanding these issues.

 

Noting that among other things, the United States and China do not have an existing hotline agreement that we've had one with the Soviet Union, then Russia going back to 1963. That much of the edifice of arms control that was built up in that bipolar world, the Cold War and early post-Cold War has frayed. The rise of China and other countries adds a new degree of complexity that did not exist in a bipolar world. That is you not only have to worry about what the Russians are doing, but the Chinese or the Indians, the Pakistanis, and each country's in a different position as far as that goes. My understanding is the Chinese have shown literally no interest in sitting down and having those discussions. Why's that?

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah. It's really unfortunate, actually. I think to me, this is one of the things that really, really concerns me. I think there are probably a couple of things going on here, as to why China hasn't really been as interested in strategic stability talks as the gravity of the issue demands. Going back to, I think, one of the big issues is just working out how you get China and the United States to talk about these issues from a position of political equality, where both sides don't feel like they would come to a meeting table, a negotiating room if it was on arms control. Feeling like they're at a disadvantage and information they provide is going to be exploited for the other side's military advantage. 

 

To me, one of the perennial issues here is what does political equality in the U.S.-China nuclear relationship look like, that allows the two countries to come to the table from a position of equality? During the Cold War, I think the Soviets and the United States came to the bargaining table at a time when both of them could see nuclear parity on the horizon. As the 1970s approach as Nixon takes office and says the era of parity is upon us. With that starts to negotiate some of the arms control agreements. 

 

I think if we are waiting for parity to be the basis of political equality in the U.S.-China relationship, we still have to live through the proverbial decade of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Berlin crises, which I don't know about you, but I would rather not live through. What's the other way to think about political equality in U.S.-China nuclear cooperation? If it's not the numbers given, there's still a big disparity in China or U.S. numbers. Even if China does catch up to a 1,500 nuclear warhead's number, what's to say that the U.S.-Russia arms control will hold such that that will even give China parity? 

 

I think that's not probably the right way to go about things. But that leads to the question of just like what can stand in the place of political equality? I have some ideas, but I think to get through the roadblocks of why China and the U.S. haven't talked, I think that issue of what's the basis of political equality in that relationship is one that's really important.

 

A second reason, I think, is political that for I would say most of the Bush and certainly the Obama administration, the Obama administration wrote in their nuclear posture review that they were interested in strategic stability talks with China. It essentially led to nowhere, but it's that there was a lack of political will on the PRC side to push some of the bureaucracy to have discussions about nuclear policy. Even though we saw quite some productive discussions about crisis management in the U.S.-China relationship with incidents in the era, et cetera. The political will wasn't there to make this a priority in that era. I think since the relationship has deteriorated since about 2017, the political will to push nuclear matters to the top of the agenda has also been lacking. But in part, because the overall cooperation and discussion between the U.S. and China has tailed off significantly. There's the political piece as well. 

 

I think the third challenge right now, is the X factor that is Russia. That the China-Russia relationship is making real a lot of the concerns that previously, I think, were quite theoretical in Washington about the prospects of having to think about conflicts simultaneously or in quick succession between both the U.S. or NATO and Russia, and the U.S. and China. The relationship with Russia, I think, adds to some of the difficulties of getting to the bargaining table.

 

LINDSAY:
Well, that certainly highlights the complexity of the nuclear age. We are now moving into one of the reasons the Trump administration gave for leaving the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty back in August 2019, wasn't just that the Russians weren't complying with all the elements of the treaty. But that this treaty precluded the United States from developing a particular class of weapons, intermediate range ballistic missiles, but the Chinese were beginning to develop. That would have perverse consequences for the United States elsewhere in the world. I think that factors into all of this.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Yeah. I think what's so interesting about this is that I went looking in a lot of detail at China's decision-making about setting up its conventional missile forces in the early 1990s. Precisely, the missiles that created those concerns for the United States staying in the INF treaty. There is very little evidence that China was aware that there was some sort of an opportunity or a constraint on the U.S. to exploit in developing those conventional intermediate range and missiles.

 

But on the other hand, this capability that China is built up, it's this large, diverse, conventional missile force has caused a lot of headaches for the U.S. and the Indo-Pacific. Now may become a victim of its own success because it has pushed the U.S. to reconsider these treaty commitments. With some pretty uncertain consequences for China going forward, if and when the United States does think about deploying those kinds of capabilities in the Indo-Pacific.

 

LINDSAY:
Fiona, are we locked into an arms race dynamic here? I asked that question because it seems to me the sentiment on Capitol Hill is focused on matching or beating Chinese investment, rather than asking how we get to strategic stability.

 

I'll note that Representative Mike Rogers, the current chair of the House Armed Services Committee, let me quote him here, "We cannot allow that to happen." Referring to China's approaching parity with the United States, "The time for us to adjust our force posture in increased capabilities to meet this threat is now."

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Despite, I think, these types of concerns that make it feel like we might be sliding into an arms race. Look, I just think it's worthwhile emphasizing that China's nuclear arsenal by the Pentagon's last estimate at the end of last year in its China military power report, we're still looking at about 400 warheads. I think there are still ways in which for the two countries to talk about their nuclear capabilities, trying to assuage or at least better understand what some of the threat perceptions that a driving China's buildup might be, if they are indeed strategic. I guess I'd say like the trajectory feels pessimistic, but I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that we end up in an arms race. 

 

The other thing is also to think about the trade-offs that the United States and China faces for investing a huge amount of money into nuclear arms, which I think are not what reassure allies. And are not ultimately what is going to let either country achieve their aims in the Indo-Pacific, which is their conventional military power. Which is frankly more credible and more usable because it's not so destructive and unthinkable, if you like, as initiating a nuclear conflict.

 

Finally, I'd also add that I think the U.S. intelligence community has tended to always be perhaps a bit overly pessimistic in their estimates of the trajectory of the growth of China's nuclear arsenal in the past. Since China is starting, was starting, at such a low base about five years ago in the sophistication of its nuclear forces, it may not continue to grow and improve its nuclear forces as rapidly as it has in the last couple of years into the future.

 

I think the trajectory doesn't necessarily look good, but I think there's a number of ways in which the United States and China can both choose to get off that trajectory, and they may do so of their own accord anyway.

 

LINDSAY:
On that relatively optimistic note, I'll close up The President's Inbox for this week. My guest has been Fiona Cunningham. She is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. Fiona, thank you for joining me.

 

CUNNINGHAM:
Thank you so much, Jim. It's been fabulous chatting.

 

LINDSAY:
Please subscribe to The President's Inbox on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen and leave us a review. We love the feedback. The publications mentioned in this episode and a transcript of our conversation, are available on the podcast page for The President's Inbox on CFR.org.

 

As always, opinions expressed on The President's Inbox are solely those of the host or our guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's episode was produced by Ester Fang, with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks go out to Michelle Kurilla for her assistance. This is Jim Lindsay. Thanks for listening.