China must strengthen its nuclear deterrence – military press

Beijing must strengthen its nuclear deterrence and counter-strike capabilities to keep pace with the developing nuclear strategies of the US and Russia, the official newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) wrote on Tuesday. The US may be pursuing the development of new nuclear weaponry and could explicitly leave open the possibility of nuclear retaliation for major non-nuclear attacks, according to a draft of a pending Nuclear Posture Review leaked by the Huffington Post. This move by the US, combined with continuous quality improvements of nuclear arsenals in both the US and Russia, means that both countries place greater importance on deterrence and real combat usability, the article in the PLA Daily said. It was written by two researchers from the PLA Academy of Military Science, a top research institute directly responsible to China’s Central Military Commission, Reuters reports.