Beijing plans for Preemptive Nuclear Strike
China spent a great deal of money on its military during the past few years, and in 2010 alone, the budget reached 10.2 trillion yen, about 123 billion U.S. dollars. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) may not have an “operational, domestically-produced carrier and associated ships before 2015,’ but is it producing a stealth aircraft and a carrier ‘killing’ missile. Along with these military goodies, the PLA has decided to spice up its nuclear strategic policy:
The Chinese military will consider launching a preemptive nuclear strike if the country finds itself faced with a critical situation in a war with another nuclear state, internal documents showed Wednesday.
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The People's Liberation Army's strategic missile forces, the Second Artillery Corps, ''will adjust the nuclear threat policy if a nuclear missile-possessing country carries out a series of air strikes against key strategic targets in our country with absolutely superior conventional weapons…''
As we can see this policy shows China to be in ‘defensive’ position, we must keep in mind that it doesn’t seem to matter—policy-wise—who started the war. The Chinese military, ‘preemptively’ has considered itself a ‘poor loser’ and is darn well going to be the one to finish the war.
Reported by the Kyodo News, this policy “is likely to fan concern in the United States, Japan and other regional powers about Beijing's nuclear capability.”
Oh, really? But yes, it should be a concern, considering the existential qualities of the government in Beijing, being that the government is the god, and that the last time the U.S. dealt with a similar godless entity, it was in the USSR.
Now, Preemptive Nuclear Strike sounds suspiciously like Nuclear First Strike, whether we like it or not. The circumstances outlined by the PLA could easily evolve into something akin to Soviet Strategic Nuclear policy:
“The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact had a long-standing strategy to attack Western Europe that included being the first to use nuclear weapons, […] Although the aim was apparently to preempt NATO "aggression," the Soviets clearly expected that nuclear war was likely and planned specifically to fight and win such a conflict.”
Is it time to panic, maybe not, but it’s not too late to learn from history.