China needs more nuclear warheads: report

BEIJING: China should expand its stock of nuclear warheads to 1,000 soon, Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said on Friday, even as US President Donald Trump repeats his call for China to join an arms control treaty, foreign media reported.

The Global Times is published by the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party. The party has been known to float ideas and guide public sentiments via the Global Times, which tends to take a nationalistic stance on issues involving other countries.

Tensions between United States and China, already high from an ongoing trade war, have increased in recent months amid a war of words over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.