Chinese cities must brace for a potential nuclear attack, a new study has warned, singling out Japan for “sending a major danger signal” to the world.
The report, from a People’s Liberation Army medical team, said the likelihood of a large-scale global nuclear war was relatively low.
“However, the possibility cannot be ruled out that small or medium-sized nuclear-armed or potentially nuclear-armed states, driven by geopolitical or religious conflicts, could carry out a single nuclear-weapon terrorist attack on neighbouring countries or on key cities of major powers,” they wrote.
The study, from the PLA Rocket Force Characteristic Medical Centre, was published last Friday in the peer-reviewed Chinese Journal of Radiological Health.
The researchers specifically named Japan as a major concern.
They said Tokyo had yet to accede to the first legally binding international agreement to ban nuclear arms, signed in 2017, and was considering a change to its long-standing policy, known as the “three non-nuclear principles” of not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons.