The US may need to make MORE nuclear bombs as China and Russia cooperate to create a terrifying nuclear arsenal that could drawrf the superpower, a defence expert tells The Mirror.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin announced a "comprehensive" agreement last month which saw Beijing expand their nuclear energy sectors.
China is preparing to start a new 'fast breeder' nuclear reactor, known for making plutonium - a key fuel of atom bombs - on its coast, just 135 miles from Taiwan.
And Russia is supplying the nuclear material for the reactor, with the warring nation's Rosatom nuclear firm delivering 25 tons of highly enriched uranium to China to get production underway.
And it is feared the growing relationship between the two countries could create a nuclear arsenal that would dwarf the US - with a three-way new nuclear arms race over who has the biggest stockpile of nukes.
Dr Rod Thornton, a senior lecturer in Defence Studies at King's College, London, warns the United States may need to act, and soon. He told The Mirror he believes the US may need to start increasing their nuclear bombs now amid growing threats from China.
He said: "But the Biden administration might need to start NOW increasing both the US nuclear arsenal and ABM systems to counter the growing Chinese nuclear threat.
"Washington could try and drag China into some sort of treaty obligation such as that which exists between Russia and the US - the New START treaty.
"But this would come under threat if the US started - because of China - to build/field more nuclear weapons systems.
"Moscow would say that the US is then contravening START. So, toe counter China Washington might have to break international treaties.
"And we would then also be in a nuclear arms race. The other issue is that the more confidence that China has in its nuclear arsenal (as it grows) the more likely it might be to launch an invasion of Taiwan - the US might then be very wary of intervening on Taiwan's behalf."
Dr Thornton told how US President Joe Biden has no power to stop Russia providing China nuclear arsenal and US could end up becoming an "impotent outlier" if it did not act now.
He added: "The war in Ukraine has burnt the diplomatic bridges with Moscow that did once exist to at least some degree (at the nuclear level).
"So the US has no powers of persuasion that it previously had - particularly when there was previously bad blood between Russia and China.
"Now that these two have been more or less thrown together because of the war there is no longer the triangular relationship between these three great powers that kind of acted as a balancer.
"Each could play one off against the other. Now the US is an impotent outlier."
The expert believes China is desperate for plutonium and, with Russia in need of money due to the sanctions placed on them, the pair both have ambitions which could leave the US an outlier.
He added: "China wants weapons grade plutonium and Russia has quite a bit of it and needs cash. So they now might be seen to have a growing symbiotic relationship in the nuclear realm.
"China will take several years to build up a nuclear force that would seriously concern Washington."
