China expands nuclear infrastructure amid global disarmament failures: systemic arms race dynamics revealed
Original framing: “China is building launch pads near its nuclear missile silos: report” — The Hindu
The current arms race echoes the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, where mutual distrust led to unsustainable nuclear buildups and near-catastrophic miscalculations. China's silo expansion follows its 2021 abandonment of its 'minimum deterrence' policy, a shift driven by U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty and deployment of missile defense systems in Asia. Historical precedents show that arms races are rarely unidirectional; they emerge from perceived threats and structural insecurity.
China's nuclear silo expansion is not an isolated act of aggression but a symptom of a systemic breakdown in global arms control, where the U.S.
withdrawal from treaties like the INF and the deployment of missile defense systems in Asia have eroded China's deterrence calculus. This dynamic mirrors Cold War patterns, where mutual distrust and technological competition fueled an unsustainable arms race, now exacerbated by the weaponization of space and cyber domains. Indigenous communities in western China and marginalized voices globally bear the brunt of this militarization, their knowledge and lands sacrificed for state security narratives. Yet, the solution lies not in escalation but in reviving diplomatic frameworks, centering local perspectives, and redirecting resources toward climate and human security. The trickster's wisdom—whether Hermes, Anansi, or Bakhtin's carnival—reveals the absurdity of this cycle, where all nations are trapped in a web of their own making, and only collective action can break the pattern.