China's Expanding Base in Hainan
the PRC is being clear what she wants to do
Want a view of a serious navy led by serious people putting serious money towards building the world’s most serious modern military infrastructure?
Wedge out a little more than 8-minutes today to watch the exceptionally well done video by the Wall Street Journal on the latest construction at the People’s Liberation Army Navy bases on Hainan Island.
It will be a great way to set your mind right for the rest of the week.
For the first time, I see what seems to be a video from the Wall Street Journal. I need to work with written information. As it happens, I study PLAN bases and am generally familiar with the complex on Hainan.
FYI it is one of only two bases where a PLAN SSBN can be armed with a nuclear warhead. Because of unique CCP distruct of PLA and all its branches, in (peacetime) Alert Condition 1, these subs normally mount one (of upwards of twenty) conventional warheads, most of them weighing 500 kg. The nuclear warhead apparently weighs 470 kg (according to Congressional testimony). IF some nation attacked PRC with a nuclear weapon, AND IF the Joint Operations Control Center of the CMC decided it was appropriate to counterattack with a nuke (which is unlikely but possible), THEN a specific SSBN would be ordered to report to one of two (under mountain) locations where one of its missiles would have a standard warhead mounted. [An older, larger warhead cannot be fitted to any SSBN. PRC has remarkably old warhead designs, and they are the least efficient in service in the world. Nevertheless, t they are adequate for the deterrence purposes of PLA at this time.] The only doctrinal option to use a nuke appears to be "the nuclear-counterstrike campaign" (ALL known PLA doctrine is translated under Project Everest and published by CASI Publications). In such a campaign, even in a large-scale nuclear war, MOST attacks will be by CONVENITONAL warheads. Because the upwards of 20 specialized conventional warheads are capable of destroying almost every target. A nuke would be used more as a form of "messaging" - which PLA believes it is a master at - having probably excessive confidence it can control nuclear escalation in virtually every kind of war or crisis. The "message" would be approximately "we can and will use nukes if you don't stop behaving as you did just now, and we will use them on targets you won't like."
Normally, PLAN SSBNs, like every other branch of PLA, train to attack using non-nuclear warheads. Indeed, only a few of the very oldest land based missiles are limited to nuclear warheads, and these are NOT mounted either. NO PLA unit is EVER allowed to have both a nuclear warhead and the means to deliver it. IF CMC decides to use a nuke, a DIFFERENT unit must transport one to a delivery unit, and then mount and arm it (the unit with the missile does not know how). And - never mind what is published in some references - there are NO nuclear bombs any more. These were withdrawn, and their fuel recycled into missile warheads (about 2009 if memory serves, and if expert Congressional testimony is accurate).
If you care about other readiness conditions in PLAN and in Rocket Force - Alert Condition Two is entered when the order is given to issue a nuke for an operational mission. This lasts until it is both transported to the missile unit and then is mounted and armed. The unit "owning" the nuke knows how to mount and arm, the unit "owning" missile does not know how to do either. This policy is called "negative control" - no one needs to be trusted with nukes able to fire because no one has any. Alert Condition Three occurs from the moment a warhead has been armed, after it was transported and mounted. It still requires a specific order from CMC to actually fire the missile. This can be delivered several ways, but because an SSBN is in one of two naval bases, both under mountains, this can be done by actual written orders (transmitted, usually, by fiber optic cables, although several other ways exist to transmit them).
Only once in history were nuclear warheads ever issued. This was during the so called Sino-Soviet Crisis, a little understood, two front war between the USSR and PRC (in which China lost 1200 sq km of territory, among other things). Chou stayed at the joint HQ building, while other leaders dispersed to different locations. Then, control was by underground telephone lines. I do not think any other Western scholar understands in detail what happened, but a fairly impressive summary can be found in McGeorge Bundy's Danger and Survival. He was granted access to records by President Carter to write that book. I unintentionally stumbled onto the details of the control system in an online public forum called FYEO. The discussion was suspended, but I got Jim Dunnigan (who by that time had bought control) to reinstate it - in case we could tease still more details out of the Chinese troll who we were engaged with. In that crisis, PRC didn't have any long range missiles, and it did NOT trust is H-6 bombers to get through Russian air defenses, so they had no nuclear mission at all. Later H-6's using modern standoff missiles are THEORETICALLY "dual capable" but, like the rest of the PLA, are almost certain to use conventional warheads, even if a "nuclear counterstrike campaign" has been authorized, for most targets. CMC's Joint Combined Arms Control Center would decide on a case by case basis if a nuke was actually to be use. Almost all Chinese nuclear warheads are 470 kg standard issue primitive two stage thermonuclear bombs. My figures are derived from Lewis, and are consistent with expert testimony before Congress, but NOT with official DoD estimates (which are - similar to Cold War era practice - based on assumptions and, if you believe the official "citations" - include tabloid sources!). I control my estimates by consideration of the fuel stockpile, the state of industry and its production (which was suspended in 1991), and the known details of recycling programs. The problem with official estimates is they use START rules - under which every missile has a nuke - but which rules never applied to PRC - and anyway - PRC NEVER mounts ANY nukes in peacetime - whatever our more senior generals (who do not read Chinese language materials) may assume.
Obviously, they are serious, and we are not.