China tech fears are unfounded---they can’t catch up.

But much of the fear over China’s technological rise is unfounded. Fundamentally, China is like most emerging economies around the world: still trying hard to close the enormous technological gap with advanced economies led by America. China has undoubtedly made more progress than many of its developing peers in that race. Its tech industries have grown at a faster pace and achieved a global scale beyond those of most developing countries. In a broad range of manufacturing sectors — notably consumer electronics, steel, ship building, high-speed rail systems and solar panels — China has established itself as the world’s leading producer. In areas such as consumer Internet and financial technology, it has arguably overtaken even the United States and now leads the rest of the world. Yet China hawks such as Robert Lighthizer and Peter Navarro charge that whatever progress China has made on the tech front is due to the country’s blatant theft of U.S. technology. Considering the enormous investments China has made in science and technology over recent decades, such claims do not hold water. China has devoted vast resources to research and development — $409 billion in 2015 (21 percent of the global total), according to the U.S. National Science Foundation. China’s investment in research and development grew over 20 percent annually between 2000 and 2010 and almost 14 percent from 2010-2015. U.S. research and development hovered around 4 percent over the same period. For a country with an average per capita income a mere one-sixth of America’s, China’s research and development investments reflect a real and sustained national commitment. At the same time, China has vastly expanded and improved STEM education and has one of the largest pools of STEM graduates in the world. The devotion of significant resources to research and development and human capital has in turn enabled China to reap some of the early fruits of innovation. China now tops the world in new patent filings. As the first country to receive more than 1 million patent applications in a single year — a record the World Intellectual Property Organization said reflected “extraordinary” levels of innovation — China accounts for almost 40 percent of the global total and more than that of the United States, Japan and South Korea combined. China has also significantly boosted venture capital investment, which supports the commercialization of emerging technologies. While the United States attracts the most investment worldwide (nearly $70 billion), venture capital investment in China rose from approximately $3 billion in 2013 to $34 billion in 2016, climbing from 5 percent to 27 percent of the global share — the fastest increase of any economy. China’s start-up ecosystem is both vast and vibrant; it has successfully incubated more tech unicorns than any other country except the United States. Too often, U.S. critics claim that Chinese industrial policies like Made in China 2025 are behind the country’s ascendancy in tech. In fact, virtually none of China’s leading tech firms, such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, are state-owned or meaningful beneficiaries of state support. They are all founded and led by smart and risk-taking private entrepreneurs, just like their Silicon Valley brethren. Tellingly, many Chinese tech start-ups have received U.S. venture financing. And Chinese technology companies and venture firms have made significant investments in U.S. start-ups. Sadly, the virtuous two-way venture capital flows are now in jeopardy because of Washington’s growing paranoia about China. As impressive as China’s innovation and progress may be, however, it is premature to declare that China has caught up with the U.S. tech industry. Interventionist government bureaucracy, stodgy state-owned enterprises, a rigid school system and — above all — harsh restrictions on individual freedoms continue to stifle independent thinking and creativity and constrain China from realizing its full innovation potential. While China is well positioned to succeed in “strategic” industries such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and commercial aircraft due to its vast pool of engineering talent and the size of its domestic market, so far it has remained a laggard. China has failed to develop an indigenous chip industry despite a state-led drive to do so, with tens of billions spent over the past four decades. Despite its status as the “world’s factory,” making everything from cell phones and laptops to numerous other devices, China continues to import 90 percent of its microchips from foreign countries, predominantly from the United States. That is why the U.S. threat to cut off critical chip supply to ZTE, a Chinese telecom equipment firm, has been dubbed the “Sputnik moment” in China: a sober reminder of China’s continued weaknesses in critical technologies. While China has made spectacular progress on the tech front, the United States remains the undisputed global leader in science and technology. The United States holds most of the world’s leading research universities; it deploys the highest amounts of both public and private funding in research and development; attracts the most venture capital; awards the most advanced degrees; provides the most advanced business, financial and information services and is the largest producer in knowledge-intensive, high-tech sectors, from pharmaceuticals to semiconductors. The fear that China will displace the United States as the global tech superpower is grossly exaggerated. Unfortunately, such paranoia dominates the minds of protectionist U.S. politicians and China hawks and has already amplified a destructive trade war between the world’s two largest economies. For China’s part, its soul-searching is overdue. Beijing should resist the prevalent yet ill-justified self-complacency and triumphalism that contributed to the fear in Washington in the first place, and it should make serious efforts to reform and open its domestic economy. Unless Beijing amends its heavy-handed statist approach to economic development, China’s potential as a leading nation in science and technology could be seriously curtailed.

Hard constraints check---limited testing records, political resistance, and fissile shortages.

Logan 17, PhD student in Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a Graduate Fellow and Deputy Director of the Strategic Education Initiative at Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies. (David C., 11-8-2017, “Hard Constraints on China’s Nuclear Forces”, War on the Rocks, https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/china-nuclear-weapons-breakout/)

Hard Constraints

In addition to these “softer” political constraints on a Chinese nuclear breakout, China would face several “harder” technical barriers to both developing a nuclear warfighting capability and undertaking a sprint to parity.

A nuclear warfighting capability would require China to deploy a more diversified nuclear force, with smaller-yield warheads affixed to more accurate missiles. However, the country’s current warhead designs, designed for the more limited strategy of assured retaliation, are too heavy and too powerful. During the Cold War, the average yield of U.S. tactical weapons was reported to be 4 kilotons, and NATO war planners set an upper limit of 10 kilotons for bombs that could be used on their own territory. More recently, the nuclear warhead for the U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile had a variable yield of 5 to 150 kilotons and weighed 130 kilograms. By comparison, China’s smallest nuclear warhead is estimated to have a yield of 200 to 300 kilotons and to weigh 500 kilograms.

China’s record of nuclear weapons testing does not give it an ideal basis for developing reliable, smaller, modern designs. Most of China’s tests involved heavy, high-yield devices. Beijing did successfully test an enhanced radiation device in the late 1980s that could serve as the technical foundation for tactical nuclear weapons, though it’s not clear this design would be suitable for developing a robust warfighting arsenal. Even if China were to rely on this design, it might face production constraints stemming from limited tritium and fissile material stockpiles. China might choose to resume nuclear testing to develop newer warhead designs, but it would take time and resources to design and certify new warheads, and the international community would detect any new testing.

Finally, China generally lacks the supporting infrastructure needed to employ a nuclear warfighting capability. Such a capability would require developing new technical capabilities, organizational arrangements, and operational practices, which China has generally avoided. For instance, a nuclear warfighting capability would likely require more flexible command and control arrangements, including delegating more authority to military commanders, as Pakistan has done to support its “asymmetric escalation” strategy. By contrast, China has prioritized strict political control over its nuclear weapons, keeping its nuclear forces somewhat insulated from its conventional ones.

China would face similar constraints in attempting a strategic sprint to parity. The most significant challenge is its limited fissile material stockpile. China’s modern warhead designs use plutonium fuel, but analysts believe Beijing last produced weapons-grade plutonium in 1991 and that it currently maintains a stockpile of only 1.8 metric tons. In addition, China has relied on conservative warhead designs that use more fuel than other countries’ warheads. Given these high fuel requirements and its limited stockpile, in a best-case scenario China could produce no more than 250 to 450 plutonium-based warheads.

China could resort to using uranium-based designs, though it faces a limited uranium stockpile as well. More significantly, the uranium designs it has tested in the past were relatively unsophisticated and ill-suited for a modern arsenal. To develop modern and reliable uranium-based warheads, China would likely have to resort again to testing new designs.

Certainly, China possesses the underlying economic, industrial, and technological bases on which to either develop a nuclear warfighting capability or attempt a sprint to parity. However, attempting either form of nuclear breakout would entail significant changes to China’s nuclear program, possibly including developing new warheads, resuming weapons testing, renewing weapons-grade fissile material production, and significantly changing operational practices. Given China’s historically conservative approach to its nuclear weapons program, it appears unlikely that it could undertake a military significant nuclear breakout in the near term or accomplish one in the long term without being detected.

Analysts who have warned of an impending nuclear breakout may be assuming that China’s ongoing modernization program is more expansive than it is, conflating a push for greater survivability with a desire for “usability,” or viewing the modest quantitative growth in China’s arsenal as a prelude to something much more expansive. Certainly, China has made tremendous progress in developing and deploying advanced ballistic missile systems, which would be a crucial component of any nuclear warfighting capability. Indeed, some observers worry that the hardware and operational practices associated with the conventional force could bleed over and end up benefitting the nuclear force. But a broader review of the other technical requirements of either developing a nuclear warfighting capability or pursuing strategic parity suggests China would nonetheless face harder obstacles.

Policy Implications

The constraints on China’s nuclear forces have important implications for U.S. policy. Policy decisions should rest on realistic threat assessments of China’s nuclear program and avoid provoking self-fulfilling prophecies. Washington should recognize the constraints on Beijing’s nuclear policy and work to reinforce those constraints and maintain strategic stability.