Stratcom Gen. Cotton: China Building New Mobile ICBMs

As part of China's buildup of its nuclear arsenal, the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force is working on a new generation of mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, Gen. Anthony Cotton, who took over as commander of the U.S. Strategic Command in December, testified in a closed-door session of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The testimony was heard on Feb. 29, reports Bill Gertz of The Washington Times, with Cotton, a four-star nuclear forces commander, calling China's rapid deployment of nuclear missiles, submarines, and bombers "breathtaking."

Cotton mentioned the new ICBMs in a passage of his prepared testimony, and said that China has more ICBM launchers than the United States.

A Strategic Command spokesman said Cotton stands by his testimony, but declined further comment because of a policy against discussing classified information.

According to the Pentagon's latest annual report on China, a long-range version of its DF-27 intermediate-range missile, which could be a new ICBM, is under development.

However, a defense source said that the new missile is not what Cotton referred to in his testimony.

The general's disclosure comes while the U.S. government is attempting to modernize its aging nuclear forces, including 400 silo-based Minuteman III ICBMs.

In January, the Air Force notified Congress that there are cost overruns in the development of Sentinel ICBMs to replace the Minuteman missiles, as well as a potential two-year delay. The Pentagon has plans to buy 650 of the newer missiles.

Meanwhile, the United States has no mobile missiles, while China has several types, Gertz reports. The mobile devices make it more difficult to deter a nuclear attack, as they are hard to track and easy to hide.

Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China's nuclear buildup in 2020, with the five-year plan to end in 2025.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., a member of the Senate Armed Services' strategic forces subcommittee, said the Chinese nuclear expansion is coming at "breakneck speed" while the country is already outpacing the United States.

"These are late-stage warnings," she said. "Congress must commit to updating our nuclear forces, which should include workforce investments, applying the Defense Production Act, and restoring our manufacturing capability."

According to a Chinese blog posting from 2020, the DF-45 ICBM would be the "new generation of solid heavy well-based intercontinental missiles."

Critics of the Biden administration say the White House has been seeking to engage Beijing in arms control talk rather than responding to the buildup. However, China has rejected strategic nuclear arms talks, claiming that its nuclear arsenal is smaller than those held by Russia and the United States.

Meanwhile, a congressional commission report made public in October did not mention new Chinese mobile ICBMs, but warned that China "is pursuing a nuclear force build-up on a scale and pace unseen since the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race that ended in the late 1980s."

The report added that China is expected to catch its deployed warheads stash up with that of the United States by the mid-2030s.