China accelerates nuclear arsenal build-up

23 October, 2023 China's Dongfeng-41 self-propelled launcher in Tiananmen Square in Beijing during a military parade in October 2019. Photo credits: Reuters China is ahead of its plans to produce nuclear warheads, increasing the pace of its nuclear development.

This is reported in the annual report of the U.S. Department of Defense. The Pentagon's report on China's military power says that Beijing is exceeding previous forecasts of how fast it is building up its nuclear weapons arsenal.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, as of May 2023, China had more than 500 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, being 100 more than last year. The U.S.

Department of Defense believes that China is likely to double this number to more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, and that the number is expected to grow. According to last year's report, Beijing is rapidly modernizing its nuclear forces and intends to almost quadruple the number of warheads. The Pentagon estimates that China will have 1,000 warheads by 2030 and 1,500 by 2035.

China's nuclear arsenal is still much smaller than those of the United States and Russia. According to the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, as of January, Russia had 5,889 nuclear warheads, while the United States had 5,244.

Scaling up the nuclear infrastructure

China is also expanding and investing in the infrastructure needed to support its growing nuclear arsenal. According to the report, new reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants for the production of plutonium are being used to produce nuclear weapons.

In addition, the construction of three new silo complexes for 300 new intercontinental ballistic missiles is likely to be completed in 2022.

It is noted that "at least some" missiles have already been loaded into the silo complexes.

Non-nuclear threat

The published report also mentions China's possible development of a new intercontinental missile system with a non-nuclear warhead that would allow it to "threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska." This hitherto unprecedented instrument of warfare could expand China's capabilities in a potential non-nuclear conflict.

The Pentagon emphasizes that it currently sees no signs that China is abandoning its "no first use of nuclear weapons" policy.