Anti-Missile System Intensifies US-China Nuclear Competition

In the case of the US, the search for nuclear security is amplified by the current US president being especially worried about America's vulnerability to a nuclear attack. Trump often speaks about the horror of nuclear weapons.“It would be great if everybody would get rid of their nuclear weapons,” he said in March,“because the power of nuclear weapons is crazy.”

During his first term, Trump seemed very concerned about North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the US homeland – but relatively unconcerned about shorter-range North Korean ballistic missiles, even though these could threaten US allies South Korea and Japan. His declaration , after meeting with Kim Jong-un in 2018, that“There is no longer a Nuclear threat from North Korea” seemed to confirm that Trump's objective was getting the US (and not necessarily US allies) de-targeted by North Korea.

On top of Trump's personal views, Americans express alarm about an“aggressive” and“destabilizing” expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal and posture . China had 235 nuclear weapons in 2003, about the same number as the UK, but is expected to have 1,000 by 2030.

The construction of a field of over 100 new long-range missile silos in China's western desert in 2021 shocked observers. The PRC has begun a policy of keeping nuclear warheads attached to their delivery vehicles on deployed platforms during peacetime. Chinese forces are also shifting to a“launch on warning” stance rather than expecting to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack only after absorbing an enemy's first strike.

Mao's complaint about the Golden Dome violating the Outer Space Treaty was disingenuous given that China is already weaponizing space at a brisk pace. China carried out 68 launches of rockets carrying payloads into orbit during 2024, the most by any country other than the US.

In April, General Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations of the US Space Force, said China is dedicating more resources to space war preparations than is the US. China is“heavily investing” in weapons to destroy or disable an adversary's satellites, with“hundreds of satellites now dedicated to tracking US assets in orbit,” Saltzman said.

Space Force Vice Chief of Operations General Michael Guetlein added that China is practicing satellite“dogfighting,” using satellites to knock out other satellites. This is consistent with discussions by PLA academics who consider the destruction or damaging of an adversary's reconnaissance and communications satellites an essential part of modern warfare.

The Chinese government has downplayed the expansion, repeating that China's nukes are only for self-defense and that China, unlike the US, has a no-first-use policy. Even with a larger nuclear weapons capability, China will be a distant third to the US and Russia, each of which possesses over 5,000 warheads.

Although new to China,“launch on warning” and deploying ships and aircraft during peacetime armed with ready-to-use nuclear weapons have long been standard practices in the US armed forces. Therefore, Beijing is not sympathetic to the US view that China's nukes threaten America and justify the Golden Dome.

In the management of their bilateral nuclear tensions, there are three possible paths the two governments could take. None is encouraging.

First, they could acquiesce to a continued nuclear arms race, with all of its risks, costs and potential futility. PRC technicians are already working on ways to defeat a US anti-missile defense system: mixing in decoys among real warheads, adding moveable fins to allow projectiles to maneuver, deploying hypersonic glide vehicles that can attack from low altitudes and unguarded directions, developing methods to fire missiles from space and thus avoid the vulnerable boost phase, and enhancing anti-satellite capabilities.

Second, the US and China could reach a grand bargain to remove the main sources of tension in their relationship and thereby assuage both sides' fear of nuclear attack. Under the present circumstances, the only way this could happen would be a US accommodation of Chinese strategic dominance over eastern Asia. Thus far Washington has made no movement in this direction.

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Third, the US and the PRC could reach an arms control agreement. Indeed, some observers wonder if the Golden Dome is a bluff to prod China into negotiations, akin to the extraordinarily high US tariffs announced in April. The idea of bilateral arms control talks, however, is not new and has proved problematic.

The US government has repeatedly invited Beijing to engage in arms control talks. The consistent Chinese response is that such talks are not possible unless the US reduces its much larger nuclear arsenal to a level similar to China's. Up to now Washington has not expressed a willingness either to cut deeply or to place serious restrictions on its own forces. George Perkovich argues that US nuclear policy-makers tend to“see arms control as a fetish of powerless NGOs and diplomats.”

A problem in bilateral discussions of strategic stability is that the Americans typically want to talk specifically about how to avoid unwanted escalation, while the Chinese want to talk more broadly about creating strategic trust, which inevitably leads to demands that Washington accept PRC“core interests” such as claims to ownership over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Furthermore, the Chinese government insists that, prior to talks about nuclear crisis management and before China will divulge details of its nuclear capabilities, Washington must publicly acknowledge that the US and China are mutually vulnerable. The Americans have refused to do this, either out of a conviction that the US should maintain nuclear dominance over China or out of fear of appearing to appease Beijing.

It is not unreasonable for a national leader to aspire to rescue his people from vulnerability to nuclear annihilation. Within the present geopolitical context, however, the Golden Dome is less likely to deliver safety to the US than to intensify the security competition with America's cold adversary.

Denny Roy is a senior fellow at the East-West Center.

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