In opening remarks at a hearing Wednesday on military posture in the Indo-Pacific region, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said to “accelerate AUKUS” to strengthen deterrence against China and North Korea.
“China now has the world’s largest Navy—and a shipbuilding capacity over 200 times greater than our own,” Rogers, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said in his remarks. “It’s rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal and is expected to double its warheads by 2030; and China leads the world in hypersonic missile systems; China’s growing defense budget shows it isn’t slowing down.”
To deter China, “we must also accelerate AUKUS, especially efforts to field cutting-edge, interoperable systems,” Rogers said. “And we need more co-production, co-development, and co-sustainment with our regional allies and partners.”
AUKUS is the trilateral agreement among Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. with goals to strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. plans to sell Australia three to five used and new Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s., and after that Australia plans to build its own subs in the following decade.
The Department of Defense in 2023 said China is expanding its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and investing in further expanding its nuclear forces.
“In return for supporting Putin’s war machine, China is receiving advanced submarine, missile, and nuclear technology,” Rogers continued.
DOD estimates that Beijing had 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023 and was on track to have over 1,000 operational warheads by 2030. These would be deployed by 2035, the Pentagon said.
“I see a lot of intelligence at a classified level, and I’ve never seen anything that tells me they [China] intend to stop at parity. Why would they?” Lt. Gen. Andrew Gebara, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff of strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, told a working group in September.
Rogers also called North Korea a “growing threat,” adding its president Kim Jong Un tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile in October that could “strike the U.S. homeland while carrying multiple nuclear warheads.”
“I’m concerned these advances will accelerate as Kim strengthens his ties with Putin,” Rogers said. “Especially given North Korea has supplied Russia with millions of shells and thousands of troops—Putin owes him.”