China, India, Pakistan boost nuclear arsenals, says report

China, India, Pakistan increase their nuclear arsenal over the past year, a figure contradicted by the US and Russia, a think tank report says, adding that the arms race is all the more disturbing.

Three of the world’s nuclear powers, China, India and Pakistan, have increased their nuclear arsenals over the past year while Russia and the United States have decreased them, a leading think tank said yesterday.

China now has 250 nuclear warheads against 240 in 2012; Pakistan has increased its warheads by about 10 to between 100 and 120; and India has also added roughly 10 for a total of 90 to 110, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its annual report.

The arms race is all the more disturbing, said SIPRI, because of what the institute called a “fragile” peace in Asia, characterized by growing tensions since 2008 between India and Pakistan, China and Japan, the two Koreas and others.

“While states have avoided direct conflict with each other and have stopped supporting insurgent movements on each other’s territory, decades-old suspicions linger and economic integration has not been followed up with political integration,” SIPRI said.

Only the two old superpowers have cut their number of warheads, Russia reducing its number from 10,000 to 8,500, and the United States scaling back from 8,000 to 7,700. The warheads controlled by France stayed at 300, while Britain’s remained at 225, and Israel’s at 80.

SIPRI acknowledged that the figures were to a large extent estimates, as the nuclear powers aren’t equally transparent, China being totally opaque, and Russia gradually becoming less open. SIPRI does not count North Korea and Iran as nuclear powers yet, as their respective programs are still considered in their early stages.

While the global total of warheads was down, SIPRI said it did not translate into a significantly diminished nuclear threat.

“Once again there was little to inspire hope that the nuclear weapon-possessing states are genuinely willing to give up their nuclear arsenals,” said SIPRI Senior Researcher Shannon Kile.

SIPRI’s annual report also contains data previously published, including figures showing a decline in global arms spending in 2012 of 0.5 percent, the first drop since 1998.

Hurriyet Daily News