SERIOUSLY, SOMEONE ACTUALLY ASKED AT QUORA: SHOULD CHINA DESTROY ITS NUKES?

Vince Dhimos answered a question at Quora.
 
https://www.quora.com/When-will-China-agree-for-nuclear-disarmament-and-destroy-its-existing-nuclear-stockpiles-and-sign-the-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty/answer/Vince-Dhimos
 
When will China agree for nuclear disarmament and destroy its existing nuclear stockpiles and sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty?
 
Vince Dhimos Geopolitical Analyst at New Silk Strategies (2016–present)
 
I am assuming that this querier is an aficionado of Western news sources and thinks US politicians are honest and moral and never lie about China to get votes.
 
Let’s start with the US and its nuclear stockpile. According to this site Nuclear weapons of the United States - Wikipedia
 
“As of 2019, the U.S. has an inventory of 6,185 nuclear warheads; of these, 2,385 are retired and awaiting dismantlement and 3,800 are part of the U.S. stockpile.” [my highlighting]
 
Then let’s move on to the universally accepted rationale for building and stockpiling nuclear weapons:
 
The rationale for this is called MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction. This is not as wicked as it sounds. It is based on the theory that if 2 countries that are at odds with each other each have about the same number of nukes, then neither one will likely launch a pre-emptive strike on the other because that other would respond in kind and both countries would be smoked. So, crazy as it sounds, if a country that harbours hostility toward you has nukes, it is beneficial for world peace if you have at least enough nukes to blow that country away in the off chance that it attacks you with its nukes.
 
Now let’s look at what the US is asking of China. The whole issue was raised by the US when Russia brought up the topic of a new START treaty, ie, a treaty on arms limitations of the kind that the US and the USSR signed in 1991, and the US said “wait a minute. Even if we sign an agreement with you, what about China? It has nukes too and we want all three of our signatures on the deal.” Russia and China both responded that it was not yet necessary to include China in the treaty because China doesn’t have anywhere near the number of nukes as either of us. So let’s see how many China has.
 
According to this site: Fact Sheet: China's Nuclear Arsenal - Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, it has about 320 nukes.
 
Well, that is enough nukes to worry about. If China sent one of these to each of 320 US cities and military bases, it could be messy, to say the least.
 
But at any rate, China has come up with a really clever and creative response, namely: Ok, when the US reduces its stockpile to the same size as ours, we will talk.
 
That’s where we’re at at this point in time.
 
But it looks like there are some who think China should mothball ALL of its nukes before coming to the bargaining table. Seriously, what do you suppose its chances are of doing something that STUPID?
 
That would, of course, render the MAD rationale null and void. And it might tempt some of the US’s numerous psychopathic Neocon politicians to launch a pre-emptive strike on China.
 
Of course, there are some Americans who think that China is a danger to world peace.
 
But let me remind you that it was not China that went to Dresden and slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent civilians by firebombing them and roasting them like chestnuts. And it was not China that invaded Nagasaki and Hiroshima and snuffed out over 200,000 lives, Nor was it China that went into North Korea in the 50s and slaughtered 3 MILLION mostly civilians from the air. And it was not China that went to Vietnam and slaughtered 3 MILLION mostly civilians from the air. Nor was it China that invaded Iraq and killed an estimated 3 MILLION mostly civilians from the air (that figure is disputed but it certainly was well over a million innocent lives snuffed out!) In fact, neither China nor Russia ever came close to committing that kind of atrocities! It was the US that committed all of these horrendous crimes!
 
So if you were a person from the planet Zog instead of an American from Appalachia or Nebraska or wherever, and you had never heard of the US or of China, and had never heard a US politician speak, and you were asked which country should disarm, the one that had made a habit of slaughtering people wholesale or the country that had never staged a bombing raid on anyone, what do you suppose you’d say?
 
Here is my advice: Let’s be fair, shall we?