"Doomsday Clock" Moved Forward by One Second – The World Must Face the CCP's Nuclear Threat

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is aggressively expanding its military, with its nuclear arsenal expected to reach 1,500 warheads by 2035, approaching the scale of the U.S. and Russia. The United States is increasingly concerned about China's nuclear expansion. (Video screenshot)

People News - On January 28, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced the latest time on the Doomsday Clock—now at 89 seconds to midnight. This is one second closer to global catastrophe compared to 2023 and 2024, marking the closest point to "midnight" since the symbolic clock was established in 1947.

The 2025 Doomsday Clock Statement emphasized that even a one-second advance should be seen as an extremely dangerous warning.

The main reasons for this adjustment include: The increasing risk of nuclear weapon use; Climate change, with 2023 being the hottest recorded year and insufficient long-term countermeasures; The spread of infectious diseases, posing a significant biological threat; The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into military systems, creating new risks; The erosion of the global information ecosystem due to misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood.

The Doomsday Clock statement covered a wide range of issues, but this article argues that: 1. The greatest and most immediate threat comes from nuclear weapons—this should be the main focus. 2. While the statement does dedicate a section to "Nuclear Outlook: Extremely Dangerous Trends Persist," discussing potential escalation from the Russia-Ukraine war, Middle East conflicts, Iran and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, China's nuclear expansion, and U.S. nuclear modernization, it fails to highlight that China's nuclear buildup is fundamentally reshaping the global nuclear landscape—and in the long run, poses the greatest danger.

If the Russia-Ukraine war or Middle East conflicts spiral out of control, they might trigger a limited nuclear war, which should be prevented at all costs. However, the structural factor that is fundamentally shifting the global nuclear balance is the CCP's nuclear expansion and its long-term intentions. If Beijing, guided by its ideological ambitions—such as the so-called "Community of Common Destiny for Mankind" (a modern version of Marxist-Leninist "global liberation")—seeks to challenge the U.S. and dominate the world, the risk of all-out nuclear war will loom over humanity.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been infatuated with nuclear weapons, and its nuclear war doctrine is deeply alarming. As early as November 18, 1957, during a visit to the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong shocked Communist leaders worldwide with his remarks on nuclear war, stating: "At worst, we’ll have a nuclear war. What’s the big deal? There are 2.7 billion people in the world—if half of them die, the other half will survive. China has 600 million people—if half die, we’ll still have 300 million left. So who cares?" This statement stunned the Communist leaders in attendance. Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party General Secretary trembled as he held his coffee, responding: "China has 600 million people, but we only have 20 million!" Mao's reckless nuclear war rhetoric was one of the key reasons for the eventual Sino-Soviet split, as even the Soviet Union found his stance too extreme. Western media subsequently branded Mao as a warmonger.

Mao Not Only Talked – He Acted on His Nuclear Ambitions. From the very beginning of its rule, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prioritized nuclear weapons development, despite widespread poverty and suffering among the population. In January 1955, the CCP's Central Secretariat expanded meeting made a strategic decision to launch China's nuclear program. Even during the Great Famine (1958–1960), which led to tens of millions of deaths, the CCP pushed forward with its nuclear and missile programs at all costs. It pursued the so-called "Two Bombs, One Satellite" project, leading to China's first nuclear test on October 16, 1964, and its first hydrogen bomb test on June 17, 1967. (Today, Kim Jong-un is following Mao's path, prioritizing nuclear weapons over people's survival, ignoring international sanctions, and pressing ahead with nuclear development.)

After acquiring nuclear weapons, the CCP felt emboldened, but it also knew that it was far behind the U.S. and the Soviet Union. To mask its weakness, China adopted a "No First Use" (NFU) nuclear policy, using it as a diplomatic tool to gain credibility.

However, after joining the WTO in 2001, China's economic boom accelerated. By 2010, it had become the world's second-largest economy, and the CCP no longer hid its global ambitions. When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he launched "Great Power Diplomacy" and "Wolf Warrior Diplomacy", significantly expanding China’s nuclear arsenal. While the U.S. and Russia focused on nuclear arms reduction after the Cold War, China bucked the trend and pursued aggressive nuclear expansion.

For years, Washington misjudged the CCP, believing that economic integration would lead to a peaceful transition in China. However, the CCP used strategic deception to strengthen itself while secretly preparing for confrontation. As a result, China grew into a greater threat to the U.S. than the Soviet Union ever was during the Cold War. This realization led to a historic policy shift during Donald Trump's first term, as the U.S. finally recognized the danger of China's nuclear expansion. The 2020 U.S. Department of Defense "China Military Power Report" estimated that China had over 200 nuclear warheads, doubling its stockpile in the past decade. The report highlighted China's 20-year asymmetric arms race against the U.S., proving that nuclear expansion was a core part of the CCP's strategic challenge. As a result, both the Democratic and Republican parties have since adopted a tougher stance toward China.

In October 2022, the CCP’s 20th National Congress report officially proposed "building a powerful strategic deterrent force system." This marked a new phase of China's nuclear expansion, as Beijing aimed to shift the global nuclear balance from a U.S.-Russia bipolar system to a U.S.-China-Russia tripolar structure. The CCP’s ultimate goal is to use its growing nuclear capability to deter the U.S. from intervening in a potential Taiwan conflict.

By 2024, China’s nuclear expansion had made significant progress. The 2025 Doomsday Clock Statement noted that: China's nuclear arsenal had grown to approximately 600 warheads; For the first time, China may be deploying some warheads on missiles even during peacetime; In September 2024, China test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (DF-31AG) targeting the South Pacific region, 11,700 kilometers away—marking China's first missile test in the Pacific since 1980.

Due to its ongoing nuclear expansion, the CCP's so-called "nuclear diplomacy" is widely dismissed. In 2024, China repeatedly proposed that the five nuclear-armed UN Security Council members negotiate a "mutual No First Use (NFU)" treaty or issue a joint political statement on NFU. However, none of the other four nuclear powers (U.S., Russia, UK, France) responded, as they saw China’s NFU proposal as mere rhetoric, contradicted by its actual nuclear expansion.

The latest development in China’s nuclear expansion came on January 28, 2025, when Reuters published an exclusive report revealing that: China is constructing a large laser ignition fusion research facility in Mianyang, Sichuan Province; This facility could aid in nuclear weapons design and fusion energy research; According to experts from two analytical organizations, China's experimental platform in Mianyang is 50% larger than the U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF)

In summary, the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) nuclear expansion and ambitions have been fully exposed. In October 2024, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released the second edition of the Global Nuclear Landscape report, stating: "China is undergoing the most rapid nuclear force expansion and most ambitious modernization effort in its history—almost certainly driven by its long-term strategic competition with the United States and aimed at achieving long-standing but now increasingly realizable strategic objectives."

Given the nature of the CCP regime—repressive at home and expansionist abroad, along with its growing national power—its threat surpasses that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and Nazi Germany during World War II. Containing the CCP and halting its nuclear expansion has become an urgent and paramount priority.