By Courtney Kube -
NBC News
WASHINGTON - China has accelerated its nuclear weapons production, expanded its missile program and a year ago feared the United States would launch a war before the 2020 presidential elections, according to a new Pentagon report released Wednesday.
The growing tension over rumors of a possible warfare forced then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper to order the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, to call his Chinese counterpart just before the elections
to calm him down
.
Chinese citizens watch the passing of a vehicle carrying nuclear weapons during the military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China on October 1, 2019 in Beijing. Mark Schiefelbein / AP
This is one of several communications that Milley had with China and that Republicans used to
accuse him of disloyalty
to then-President Donald Trump.
Titled "Military and Security Events Related to the People's Republic of China," the report also notes that China could have
700 nuclear warheads by 2027 and at least 1,000 by 2030
.
The Pentagon said in its report last year that the Chinese government had about 200 warheads.
[The Pentagon is alarmed by China's hypersonic weapons after a similar US military trial failed]
A senior Defense Department official explained that China's growing nuclear arsenal "
exceeds expectations
" in the Pentagon's 2020 report on China, but ruled out that the Asian country has the same number of nuclear warheads as the United States when this decade ends. .
The Pentagon document also highlights that the Chinese government could already have a nuclear triad,
a military strategy based on nuclear-capable ballistic missiles launched from land, sea and air
.
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China is also building the necessary infrastructure to support "the great expansion of its nuclear forces."
A war that did not exist fueled by the Chinese press
On the other hand, the document reveals that China believed that there was a significant threat from the United States during the second half of 2020, including the possibility that Washington would initiate a military conflict in the days before the presidential elections.
[The most powerful general feared that Trump would act like Hitler and carry out a coup, according to a newspaper book]
"Widespread speculation" in the Chinese media that the US government would "deliberately instigate a conflict" in the South China Sea led
to large-scale military drills, increased Chinese military preparation and additional deployments
, according to a fact sheet. of the Pentagon on the report.
As tensions mounted, the report noted, Esper ordered Milley and the undersecretary of defense for China to contact their Chinese counterparts to reassure them.
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The Pentagon also notes that China continues to expand its arsenal of ballistic missiles and is developing a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which "will require greater production of nuclear warheads" due to the new vehicles.
China currently has about
100 ICBMs
and is building at least three new solid-fuel ICBM silos fields that could contain hundreds of new ICBM silos and could indicate that it is about to expand its missile force. ballistics, the report warns.