Re: China's Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) against the United Stat
Lot of errors in this article. China does not have 100 icbm's or fissile material for it.
In the last fifty years, the Soviet Union and the United States have repeatedly threatened China. Do you think the Chinese have multiple operational underground plutonium plants? I think the correct answer is "yes," because China needed secure underground plutonium plants to protect itself from the USSR and the U.S.
China Opens Vast Underground Nuke Plant to Public
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China Opens Vast Underground Nuke Plant to Public
[email protected] / Apr. 29, 2010 11:21 KST
China has opened the world's largest underground nuclear weapons plant to the public. According to the official China Daily on Tuesday, China opened the plant dubbed the "816 project" in a mountain in Chongqing's Fuling district to tourists recently. It lies in the world's largest man-made cave, which is
20 km deep.
A 79.6 m-high nine-story building was built in the cave with a total floor area of some 13,000 sq. m.
A reactor in the plant produced weapons-grade plutonium 239.
The entire facility consists of 18 caves, 130 roads, tunnels, mine shafts, and weapons and food storage. It is designed to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake or a nuclear attack.
Construction began with approval by then premier Zhou Enlai in 1967. A total of about 60,000 workers were mobilized during the eight-year construction, which cost 740 million yuan.
In this screen-grab from the China Daily website, visitors look at an underground nuclear plant in Chongqing, China on Tuesday. /Courtesy of China Daily
China decided to build this nuclear facility when relations with the Soviet Union turned sour in the 1960s, but it shut down amid changes in the international situation in 1984. In 2002, Beijing declassified the facility and now the Chongqing city government has opened it to the public.
But the plant is still under strict control, with soldiers standing guard at the entrance. Tourists are allowed to enter only with permits, the daily reported."
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Project 816 - Unfinished plutonium production complex in China
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Project 816 - Unfinished plutonium production complex in China
By Pavel Podvig on June 5, 2010 11:39 AM
Guest contribution by Hui Zhang
China has been known to have two plutonium production facilities - the Jiuquan and Guangyuan complexes. As it turns out, it built another one - The "816 Nuclear Military Facility" is located near Baitao in Fuling District (the entrance to the facility might be about a kilometer north-east of the village). It had never appeared publicly until April 2010, when China opened it as a tourist attraction. The facility, which was built underground, has never been operational - the project approved in 1966, the construction began in 1967, but the project had not been completed and was terminated in 1984. Later it became part of the Jianfeng Chemical Engineering Plant under China's National Nuclear Corporation.
Entrance to the facility. The sign in Chinese above the tunnel reads "816 Underground Nuclear Project".
Reactor hall
Control room
The underground complex was planned to have plutonium production reactors, similar to the reactors that were deployed in Jiuquan and Guangyuan. The complex apparently was supposed to host reprocessing and storage facilities as well."
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In 1991, China promised to only stop producing plutonium for MILITARY purposes
The current estimate by the West that China has a maximum of 400 thermonuclear warheads is based on a very flimsy assumption. In 1991, China gave a qualified promise to stop producing plutonium for military purposes.
This raises an obvious question. Did China keep producing plutonium in its underground plutonium plants (like the one located in Chongqing, see references below) for civilian purposes? If so, China is sitting on a massive stockpile of plutonium and no one knows how many thermonuclear warheads were built by China during the last 21 years (e.g. 1991-2012).
References:
China Opens Vast Underground Nuke Plant to Public
Project 816 - Unfinished plutonium production complex in China
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China's Nuclear Ambition Grows
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China's Nuclear Ambition Grows
The Risk Report
Volume 1 Number 9 (November 1995) Page 1
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U.S. officials estimate that China has roughly 450 nuclear warheads, though China has produced enough weapon-grade uranium and plutonium to build an arsenal more than three times that size. In August, China conducted its 43rd nuclear weapon test. U.S. analysts expect that Beijing will test again this year, and maybe two or three times in 1996 before an international treaty to ban nuclear tests comes into effect.
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China is believed to have stopped making enriched uranium for military purposes in the late 1980s, and to have stopped producing plutonium for bombs in 1991. But a U.S. government nuclear specialist cautions that China's declarations are "a masterpiece of Chinese-speak; you must listen carefully when they say they have stopped making plutonium for military purposes.'" China continues to enrich uranium for use as reactor fuel, and is building a pilot plutonium extraction plant, scheduled to start by the year 2000. China also may build another large plutonium extraction plant for "commercial" purposes, but Beijing promises that the new facilities will be open to international inspection."
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China has two additional sources of plutonium: fast breeder reactor and reprocessed spent fuel
1.
Above-ground plutonium plant - In 1991, China promised to shut down its two above-ground dedicated plutonium plants. This has been confirmed by the absence of smoke from the smokestacks. Everybody agrees on this point.
2.
Underground plutonium plant - What about China's underground plutonium plants? We've all seen the pictures of the massive plutonium facility in Chongqing. Was plutonium produced at the plant? No one knows, except for the Chinese government.
Did China build other underground plutonium plants? We don't know the answer to that question either. However, if you were China and the Soviets and the Americans had been threatening you with their thermonuclear weapons, would you build more underground plutonium plants?
3.
Fast breeder reactor - China is building fast breeder reactors. We know China has connected a small fast breeder reactor to its power grid. Thus, we know China possesses the technology to build a small civilian fast breeder reactor. If you were the PLA, would you demand that the scientists build a larger underground fast breeder reactor? You need plutonium to build more thermonuclear warheads.
China
"China's Nuclear Scientists Unveil Latest 'Breakthrough'
July 21, 2011, 8:38 PM HKT
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The China Institute of Atomic Energy said Thursday that a small, experimental "fast breeder" reactor outside Beijing had been hooked to the grid to produce electricity. Essentially, the tiny 20 megawatt nuclear plant "863" is now helping satisfy China's vast power needs.
To supporters of nuclear power, fast-breeding is alluring.
The idea is that it produces more plutonium than the plant needs to run, providing fissionable material usable elsewhere in the nation's nuclear program. For China, which is long on nuclear ambitions but short on uranium, it's an especially desirable technology."
4.
Reprocessed spent nuclear fuel - China is believed to have acquired the plutonium to build its first thermonuclear warhead by separating the plutonium from the uranium fuel rods in its civilian nuclear reactors. China has many more and larger nuclear reactors today than in 1967. China has a gigantic supply of readily available plutonium that can be easily reprocessed from their spent uranium fuel.
China's recent claim of a nuclear-power breakthrough is no piece of (yellow) cake - China Real Time Report - WSJ
"Nuclear engineers have long had the ability to reprocess uranium after it is used in a reactor to produce power. In the process, plutonium is split from the spent uranium and fed into a reactor to produce more power–or used to make nuclear weapons.
In fact, China likely obtained the plutonium for its first test of a nuclear weapon in 1964 using a process similar to the one now claimed by China National Nuclear, experts say."
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The entire Western estimate of the Chinese thermonuclear arsenal is based strictly on point #1. What about the sources of Chinese plutonium from underground plutonium plants, fast breeder reactors (because we know China has the technology), and reprocessed spent uranium fuel (which is how China separated the plutonium for its first thermonuclear warhead)?
How much plutonium do you think China possesses from sources #2, #3, and #4? Unless someone can definitively answer points #2, #3, and #4, Western estimates of available Chinese plutonium are a best-case scenario. It is nowhere near the plutonium (and the total Chinese thermonuclear warheads) in a worst-case scenario.
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"Core height for the China Experimental Fast Reactor is 45 centimeters. It has 150 kilograms of plutonium (98 kg of which is Pu-239)."
