HEFFNER: I am Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, Tong Zhao.

He is senior fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program and Carnegie China at Carnegie's East Asia-based research center on contemporary China.

Welcome, sir.

ZHAO: Thank you so much for having me.

HEFFNER: Thank you for your time today.

I wanted to evaluate today with you the threat of nuclear armament and buildup in the Asia continent, specifically China and North Korea.

Can you tell us looking at the development of nuclear technology and weaponry, there is the suggestion that China's capacities have been greatly enhanced over the last several years.

Is that accurate?

And, if that is accurate, what really is the purpose at this point for the continued buildup?

Is it competition with the United States, or is there some particular goal that they're seeking, a kind of technology or capacity that they don't presently have?

ZHAO: The Chinese government has been very secretive about its nuclear program.

It has never released any authoritative data about this nuclear hospital.

But according to assessment by other governments, such as the United States, and also by research of international scholars using open-source data, there is a general consensus in the international research community that China's nuclear arsenal has been growing very quickly and dramatically.

For decades, China was believed to have maintained as small as about 200 nuclear weapons.

But today, the number is believed to have surpassed 500, and the number is projected to reach about 700 by 2027 and 1000 by the end of the decade.

And in addition to the numbers, China is also diversifying nuclear.

It's now openly building a new nuclear capability, including land-based, sea based, and air based nuclear weapons.

And it is moving some privacy nuclear forces on higher alert status in peace time, and potentially transitioning towards a so-called launch on warning or launch under attack posture, which makes accidental nuclear use more likely.

What's the purpose of China's nuclear buildup?

Some people think Chinese simply reacting to perceive the threats from the American development of advanced non-nuclear military technologies, such as missile defense, conventional missiles that could preemptively destroy Chinese nuclear weapons and neutralize Chinese nuclear deterrence.

But I'm not sure that's the most important driver of the current buildup.

My research indicates that the Chinese political leadership, especially the current paramount leader, Mr. Xi Jinping, he seems to believe that nuclear weapons have very important geopolitical significance.

And if China can demonstrate a stronger nuclear capability, that could compel the United States to behave more carefully towards China and to adopt a more conciliatory approach, a softer position towards China, across the board beyond nuclear domain.

So China would expect the United States to be softer on issues like Taiwan or South China Sea, or be more careful in imposing economic sanctions on China, be less wanting to engage in China's so-called internal affairs, be less critical about China's human rights behavior, et cetera.

So Xi Jinping appears to believe that nuclear weapons can deliver broader coercive, benefit in addition to making military conflict less likely to happen between the two sides.

HEFFNER: Do you see Taiwan and what we perceive to be in the United States, the pursuit of Taiwan to become fully under the banner of China's authority, do you see the nuclear buildup as specifically linked to that foreign policy goal to intimidate not only the United States, but other world powers to not interfere with Chinese takeover of Taiwan and that this has been a strategic movement, so that when this happens, there's more an acceptance, the only thing stopping China from taking over Taiwan is nuclear war.

ZHAO: The increasingly realistic risk of a military conflict between us and China over Taiwan is part of China's consideration behind the nuclear buildup.

And here I don't think China really intends to initiate a nuclear conflict over Taiwan because if we look at the balance of conventional military power, it is increasingly moving towards China's advantage.

It is actually the United States who has such a hard time maintaining its traditional, conventional military superiority.

In the Western Pacific Theater and in many specific technological areas, China has developed obvious advantage over the United States.

So China has demonstrated growing competence in its capability to deter and if deterrence fails, uh, to win a conventional war over Taiwan Strait.

But China understands that US is also aware of the declining American conventional military superiority in this region.

And indeed, some American strategists have made this argument very publicly that because of this trend the US needs to rely more on nuclear weapons in the Asia Pacific to counter the Chinese threat.

And the US might need to think more seriously about threatening nuclear escalation in a potential future world over Taiwan.

And China is very concerned about such American thinking.

And I think the primary goal of Chinese nuclear weapons is actually to deter US capability to escalate a conventional war to the nuclear level.

And therefore, we have seen China investing in theater range precision nuclear capable missiles that will give China the capability to respond in kind to a limited theater level US nuclear use.

That said, I don't think China’s concern over Taiwan explains China's overall nuclear buildup, because the most relevant nuclear weapons for China to use over Taiwan Strait is theater range in nuclear forces.

DF21, DF26 missiles, et cetera, medium range, intermediate range.

But the most important part of current Chinese nuclear expansion actually consists of intercontinental range nuclear weapons.

Hundreds of silo based ICBMs are being added to Chinese nuclear arsenal Chinese, also building more units of road mobile intercontinental range, basic missile launch vehicles.

So those weapons don't really have any direct military role in a Taiwan contingency.

So I think those weapons actually serve the broader objective of making US behave more carefully towards China in general, it will help contain perceived US hostility over Taiwan from the Chinese perspective, but they also serve broader coercive goals.

HEFFNER: It’s always interesting to think about what the real intention when it comes to nuclear buildup, because we understand that the major powers now possess all the nukes they need to not only destroy the planet for inhabitability, once but many, many times over.

I wonder how you perceive the Chinese mindset towards that notion of mutually assured destruction.

Is it different than the way the US or the Russians are thinking about that question?

ZHAO: Indeed.

For decades, China's traditional nuclear thinking is focused on the concept of mutually vulnerable relationship between US and China.

The primary China's goal is to ensure that after absorbing preemptive disarming first strike from United States, China would have enough nuclear weapons to survive.

And then China could use its remaining nuclear weapons to deliver an effective retaliation and cause unacceptable damage to the United States, so as to deter the US from using nuclear weapons in the first place.

And as a result, China understood for a long time, it didn't need a large nuclear arsenal even a small arsenal of a couple hundred nuclear weapons were more than sufficient to secure a second strike capability.

But afraid today, under current Chinese leadership, the thinking goes beyond nuclear level stability or nuclear mutual vulnerability relationship.

China thinks that a greater nuclear somehow could make the United States accept the reality of China's rights and will the US will be more concerned about any prospect of a serious conflict with China, and therefore, the US has to adopt a softer position on China over many issues.

President Xi in particular has developed the perception of an existential threat from United States.

And somehow he has this intuition that a bigger nuclear no could enhance China's status and make the United States respect China's core interests.

So I'm not sure that the nuclear level mutual vulnerability relationship is still the main starting point of China's thinking on nuclear weapons today.

HEFFNER: Talk to me about North Korea and what relationship, if at all, China has had with North Korea in the further development or enhancement of its nuclear program.

I had an exchange recently with the editor of Foreign Affairs Magazine, and he said he disagreed with my assessment that North Korea's weapons were not necessarily as advanced as we would be led to believe And I suggested the idea that I wondered if China, over the years has been at all involved in helping the North, establish their program, innovate their program, because China and Russia too are the only links that North Korea has to the outside world with that kind of capacity.

So it was an interesting question, and I don't know if you have the answer, but to what extent have, have China and Russia's nuclear aptitude contributed to North Korea's own knowledge and innovation in this space?

ZHAO: Well, China is not particularly interested in helping North Korea improve its nuclear or missile capability, which is obviously against the Chinese interest.

If you recall, after Kim Jong Un, the current, supreme leader of North Korea came to power, he started to speed up the testing process of missiles and nuclear weapons.

And China was really unhappy about it.

The two countries didn't have leadership relationships for many years.

By 2016 and 2017, China was so pissed off by North Korea's development of nuclear capabilities.

China joined forces with other major powers and helped to roll out a number of UN Security Council Resolutions that imposed really severe and really comprehensive economic sanctions on North Korea to the point that North Korea started to implicitly threaten China.

There was reported, statement by senior North Korean leaders in internal setting, in which North Korean official implied that North Korean’s missiles could also reach important parts of China.

So I don't think China is in a position to actively assisting North Korea's missile and nuclear program.

Those capabilities in fact have negative security consequences for China.

They provide the excuse from the China's perspective.

They provide the excuse for US to further deploy more troops and weapons to the Korean peninsula and to other places near China.

They would prompt US allies to forge closer security relationship with United States.

They even encouraged increasing discussion in Seoul and Tokyo about the potential necessity to develop indigenous nuclear weapons.

And it makes the so-called Asian NATO increasingly realistic.

And China is really concerned about such developments and is widely believe that China has made some pressure on North Korea to slow down North Korea's efforts to test missiles and especially nuclear weapons.

The reason North Korea has been ready, but has not conducted its seventh nuclear test is widely believed to partially result from Chinese pressure.

However, what some people think China is responsible for is China's reluctance to impose what people think Chinese responsible for is China's reluctance to impose sweeping economic sanctions that would really threaten the fundamental stability of North Korea's internal regime.

China didn't want to join its longstanding relationship with North Korea.

China also worried about potential retaliation from North Korea.

If China starts to threaten North Korea's regime security by imposing comprehensive sanctions and threatening the survivability of North Korea's economic system, China didn't feel comfortable enough to go that far.

So some people argued by not imposing sufficiently tough sanctions on North Korea, and by not implementing the functions in the most strict manner, China actually indirectly helped North Korea survive and maintain its capability to improve its nuclear and missile technologies over time.

And in most recent couple of years when China is so focused on its competition with the US and Western countries, China also becomes more sympathetic to North Korea's security needs.

And therefore China has become less wanting to condemn North Korea's missile testing, which violated UN Security Council resolutions.

In other words, China is providing some political protection for North Korea's continued nuclear and missile development, but China is not directly contributing to those programs.

HEFFNER: That’s fair.

Maybe my question was conspiratorial, but I also think it opens the question of where the North Koreans who operate a very insular regime, where the intelligence came from.

Is your sense that it's homegrown.

Whatever nukes they have, they made entirely on their own without the assistance of other powers, or maybe even without the theft of intellectual property from other powers?

ZHAO: North Korea's enrichment technology might have been improved as a result of its access to other technologies.

We know that the AQ Khan Nuclear Smuggling Network developed from Pakistan had provided sensitive enrichment and nuclear technologies to more than one countries, including North Korea.

And North Korea might have benefited from such technologies.

AQ Khan Network might even have provided North Korea with some testing data or design blueprint for nuclear weapons.

HEFFNER: Which network is that?

ZHAO: It's basically the father of Pakistan's nuclear program.

He allegedly run his own illegal network that that sold sensitive military and nuclear technologies to many so-called countries.

Reportedly he claimed that Pakistani government was not aware of his operation but he certainly has quite close relationship with the government in Pakistan.

HEFFNER: So it sounds like that, that there were some external materials upon which the North Koreans relied to jumpstart their efforts.

ZHAO: External assistance helped North Korea make progress.

But we know that North Korea has invested huge resources over decades of time into building up a robust industrial base.

And that I think played a key role in North Korea's incremental improvement of missile and nuclear technologies.

After the end of Cold War, indeed, North Korea also brought scientists from Ukraine, from Russia.

North Korea even used the loopholes of international export control regimes to import missile launch vehicles from countries like China.

So those external technologies helped North Korea but I wouldn’t say they played the most critical role in starting the program.

HEFFNER: It's interesting to hear you say that Pakistan or the authority that you described might have been more impactful than China or Russia.

It just occurs to me that there could be, if not presently in the past, a kind of black-market exchange, rogue elements in China or Russia, when you have authoritarian regimes of that nature, that sold state secrets to assist the North Koreans.

And again this is hypothetical, but I think it might be more realistic than some are willing to, to believe.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

Tell me if it's completely impossible from your vantage point that that could have happened.

I’m curious.

ZHAO: I think in a country like Pakistan that that could have happened, given how much trust the Pakistani government had towards their top nuclear scientist A.Q.

Khan, and how much freedom he enjoyed in the Pakistani system.

HEFFNER: But what about the idea of rogue elements in either China or Russia contributing to, again, not official, the official Communist party or the official Putin.

There are a lot of people in the Russian kleptocracy.

I'm just curious from your, from your assessment, is it possible that there were ever rogue elements in Russia or China that sold technology or nuclear secrets to the North Koreans?

ZHAO: Well, it's true that some Chinese, companies and individuals have sold North Korean dual use technologies, dual use meaning they both have military and civilian applications.

I think it's mostly a result of China having a lower standard as export control.

And China thinks the Western as export control standards are too strict and they undermine legitimate trade and China's normal relationship with North Korea.

I wouldn't think the Chinese government would deliberately allow Chinese companies individuals to actively contribute to North Korea's nuclear and missile program, especially those that play a strategic military purpose.

Because again it's clear that China doesn't want North Korea to develop such capabilities which HEFFNER: And is that true of Russia too, in your opinion?

ZHAO: I think until recently that has been true.

Russia, as well as China have been generally, willing to comply with international nonproliferation regime because they have long understood it is in their own national interest to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons.

But it’s after Soviet collapsed, the Russian government at that time didn't have the capacity to well control their rocket and nuclear scientists.

So North Korea took that opportunity to buy access to technologies and even experts in following years both in the case of China and Russia, as those two countries tried to further incorporate themselves into the broader international system, they have tightened their export control regulations.

They also introduced new domestic laws in that regard, what changed is in recent years in the Russian case when Russia's relationship with Western countries fundamentally turned towards south.

Russia now no longer cares as much about respecting the so-called Western dominated international rules and institutions.

Russia has been much more willing than before to provide military assistance to North Korea, to the point that people speculate that Russia might be willing to cross the red line of providing North Korea with prohibited technologies related to nuclear missile systems.

HEFFNER: So it's fair in your analysis, perhaps, Russia would be the more likely nuclear alliance than China in their preparedness to help in some regard.

Tong Zhao, senior fellow at Carnegie China, who's studying the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, thank you for your insight today.

ZHAO: Thank you so much.

It's a pleasure.

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