MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release
December 8, 2022

CONTACTS:
Hamilton Strategies, [email protected],
Beth Harrison, 610.584.1096, ext. 105,
or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102

The CCP ‘Goes Nuclear’:
The Truth About Its Breakout Buildup

Experts Fact-find Pentagon Report Low-balling the Growing Chinese Threat

WASHINGTON — On November 29, 2022, the Pentagon sent Congress a report entitled Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2022. The report assesses the scope and implications of what is arguably the most aggressive build-up in history by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) People’s Liberation Army.

Media outlets and some legislators have focused on the report’s heightened warning about the CCP’s nuclear force modernization, noting that it would grow from a current inventory of 400 nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 2,500 by 2035. That estimate is a substantial increase from the previous year’s report that judged the Chinese would deploy 700 warheads within six years and may top 1,000 by 2030.

Some have taken comfort from the fact that the United States currently has an estimated 3,750 active warheads in its inventory. This superficial “bean-counting” does not take into account the likelihood that the CCP’s modern nuclear capabilities are being undercounted by American intelligence and that those of the U.S. are, by comparison, outdated, inadequately tested, and possibly ill-suited to today’s deterrent missions.

The next Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) webinar on Thursday, December 8, from 1:00-2:15 p.m. ET will address: what is actually known about the Chinese nuclear threat and the CCP’s doctrine for the use of such weapons; its thermonuclear arsenal’s ominous rate of expansion, both quantitatively and qualitatively; the lengths to which the Chinese Communists are going to conceal and protect their nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction; the fact that the CCP has taken advantage of arms control constraints to which the United States has subjected itself; and the implications of the Chinese and its Russian, North Korean and Iranian allies’ efforts to outmatch and undermine our obsolescing nuclear deterrent.

WHAT: CPDC Webinar | The CCP ‘Goes Nuclear’: The Truth About Its Breakout Buildup

WHEN: 1:00-2:15 pm ET, Thursday, December 8, 2022

WHO:

Moderator:

Frank Gaffney: executive chairman of the Center for Security Policy, host of Securing America with Frank Gaffney on Real America’s Voice Network, and vice-chair for the Committee on the Present Danger: China

Panelists:

Dr. Mark Schneider, PhD.: Long-time senior Pentagon official and duty expert with regard to nuclear threats and arms control; Senior Analyst, National Institute for Public Policy

Topic: “What Do We Actually Know about the CCP’s Nuclear Build-up?”

Richard Fisher: Senior Fellow for Asia, International Assessment and Strategy Center; and author, China’s Military Modernization: Building for Global and Regional Reach

Topic: “How the Chinese View — and are Preparing for — Nuclear Warfighting”

Lieutenant General Stephen Kwast, U.S. Air Force (Ret.): Former Commander, Air Education and Training Command; former Commander and President, Air University; and combat command pilot

Topic: “China’s Nuclear Ambitions and a Call to Arms for America”

Hon. Robert Joseph, PhD.: Former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; former U.S. Ambassador to the Standing Consultative Commission; former Special Envoy for Nuclear Non-proliferation; and Senior Scholar, National Institute for Public Policy

Topic: “Chinese Posturing on Nuclear Strategy, Arms Control and the Prospects for War”

Dr. Philip Karber, PhD.: Former Strategy Advisor to the Secretary of Defense; former defense industry executive; President, the Potomac Foundation; Georgetown University team leader on study and documentary film, “China’s Missiles Come Out of the Cave”; and Marine Corps veteran

Topic: “The CCP’s 3,000-mile ‘Underground Great Wall’: A Clue about How Wrong Are U.S. Estimates of Chinese Nuclear Ambitions”

Dr. Matthew Kroenig, PhD.: Former official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Member, the Central Intelligence Agency’s Strategic Assessments Group; and Director of Studies at the Atlantic Council and Acting Director of the Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security; author, The Return of Great Power Rivalry

Topic: “A Net Assessment: The Adequacy of America’s Deterrent in the Face of the Growing Nuclear Capabilities of Communist China and Its Allies”

HOW: Register at PresentDangerChina.org

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To interview representatives of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, contact [email protected], Beth Harrison, 610.584.1096, ext. 105, or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102.

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