China Deploys MIRVs

choi

David E Sanger and William J Broad, 中国升级远程导弹，增强核武威力. 纽约时报中文网, May 17, 2015
cn.nytimes.com/china/20150517/c17missiles/

, which is translated from

David E Sanger and William J Broad, China Makes Missile More Potent in Move Seen as a message to US. New York Times, May 17, 2015.

Quote:

"What makes China’s decision particularly notable is that the technology of miniaturizing warheads and putting three or more atop a single missile has been in Chinese hands for decades. But a succession of Chinese leaders deliberately let it sit unused; they were not interested in getting into the kind of arms race that characterized the Cold War nuclear competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Now, however, President Xi Jinping appears to have altered course

"Beijing’s new nuclear program was reported deep inside the annual Pentagon report to Congress about Chinese military capabilities, disclosing a development that poses a dilemma for the Obama administration, which has never talked publicly about these Chinese nuclear advances. President Obama is under more pressure than ever to deploy missile defense systems in the Pacific, although American policy officially states that those interceptors are to counter North Korea, not China.

"The choice of which nuclear missiles to upgrade was notable, Mr [Ashley J] Tellis[a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,] said, because China chose 'one of few that can unambiguously reach the United States.' * * * The Pentagon report, released on May 8, said that Beijing’s most powerful weapon now bore MIRV warheads. The intercontinental ballistic missile is known as the DF-5 (for Dong Feng, or East Wind). The Pentagon has said that China has about 20 [DF-5s, upgraded with MIRV or not] in underground silos. Private analysts said each upgraded DF-5 had probably received three warheads

"The United States pioneered multiple warheads early in the Cold War.

" 'For 20 years,' the CIA reported [in 1999, according to NYT's link], 'China has had the technical capability to develop' missiles with multiple warheads and could, if so desired, upgrade its missile forces with MIRVs 'in a few years.' ”