Fear and Ambition Propel Xi's Nuclear Acceleration

Nineteen days after taking power as China's leader, Xi Jinping convened the generals overseeing the country's nuclear missiles and issued a blunt demand. China had to be ready for possible confrontation with a formidable adversary, he said, signaling that he wanted a more potent nuclear capability to counter the threat. Their force, he told the generals, was a "pillar of our status as a great power." They must, Mr. Xi said, advance "strategic plans for responding under the most complicated and difficult conditions to military intervention by a powerful enemy," according to an official internal summary of his speech in…