China expands its nuclear arsenal

1 big thing

Axios

News

4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

China is on track to become an atomic superpower alongside the United States and Russia. The Pentagon estimates that China will roughly quadruple its nuclear stockpile by 2035. What does that mean for the U.S.? Plus, the Supreme Court delays a decision on the abortion pill. And, what to know now about Lyme Disease. Guests: Axios' Dave Lawler and Oriana González, and George Washington University's Dr. Leana Wen. Credits: Axios Today is produced by Niala Boodhoo, Alexandra Botti, Lydia McMullen-Laird, Fonda Mwangi and Alex Sugiura. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at [email protected]. You can text questions, comments and story ideas to Niala as a text or voice memo to 202-918-4893. Go Deeper: A U.S. arms race with Russia and China could spin out of control Supreme Court extends stay on abortion pill rulings Moderna is developing a vaccine against the tick-borne Lyme disease, in a first for the company Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good morning. Welcome to Exeos today. It's Thursday, April 20th. I'm Nyla Boudou.
0:09.0	Today on the show, the Supreme Court delays a decision on the abortion pill.
0:13.0	Plus, what to know now about Lyme disease.
0:16.0	But first, our one big thing.
0:18.0	China expands its nuclear arsenal.
0:21.0	What that means for the U.S.
0:23.0	China is expanding its nuclear power and is on track to become an atomic superpower alongside the United States in Russia.
0:35.0	Right now, China has about 400 nuclear warheads that's according to the Federation of American Scientists.
0:42.0	But the Pentagon estimates China will roughly quadruple its stockpile by 2035.
0:48.0	Exeos' Dave Lawler is here with what China's nuclear power will mean for the rest of the world. Hey, Dave.
0:54.0	Hi, Nyla.
0:55.0	Dave, Chinese President Xi Jinping seems determined to expand his country's nuclear arsenal.
1:02.0	What exactly have they been doing?
1:04.0	Yes, so this is not just a case of making more warheads, which they are doing.
1:09.0	They're also building more advanced nuclear submarines, building new nuclear silos, building more mobile launch vehicles.
1:17.0	So basically, this is across the board nuclear advancement.
1:21.0	China has up to now been a much smaller nuclear power than the U.S. and Russia.
1:27.0	It's had what it called a minimal deterrent so that it would make it more difficult for countries to contemplate war against China.
1:35.0	But it had not felt the need to get up to this sort of nuclear superpower levels that we saw the U.S. and Russia reached during the Cold War.
1:44.0	Now, basically, that whole landscape is changing because China is closing the gap with the U.S. and with Russia.
1:51.0	And is Russia helping China do that?
1:54.0	They are. So this actually came up from the New York Times.
	...

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