THE NEW YORK TIMES

Tong Zhao was featured in an article by the New York Times discussing China’s nuclear expansion.

Deepening tensions between Beijing and Washington appear to have hardened Mr. Xi’s judgment that China must counter “all-around containment,” including with a more robust nuclear deterrent. Even experts who believe that China’s breeder reactors face many technological hurdles see other signs that the country is expanding its nuclear weapons potential, including reprocessing plants for spent nuclear fuel, new reactors that appear to have no role in the civilian power grid, and building activity at the Lop Nor nuclear test site.

“The Chinese leadership has become even more determined to focus on the long-term China-U. S. competition and, if necessary, confrontation,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. China’s nuclear expansion, he said, is “mostly to shape the American assessment of the international balance of power, and make it accept the reality that China is set to become a similarly powerful country.”

This article was posted on the New York Times on April 19 2023. You can read the full article here.