China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal to rival other global powers

China is working to expand its nuclear arsenal and it added far more new weapons to its stockpile than the United States was projecting according to a report from the Pentagon. Here's what we know about the situation.

The U.S. Department of Defense believes that China has roughly 500 nuclear warheads in its arsenal as of May 2023 according to the department's annual China Military Power Report, which should be worrying for any world government. 

China’s current nuclear inventory at the time the report was released included one hundred more warheads than it did in the previous year, a statistic that shows the country’s ability to rapidly assemble advanced nuclear weaponry on par with other leading states. 

The Department of Defense noted in its report on China’s military power that Beijing will continue to “rapidly modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces” and added that the country’s new modernization dwarfs previous efforts. 

“They are exceeding some of our previous projections and so if you take that out beyond 2030 I think it’s safe to say that that’s a trend that we think would continue,” one official said according to Defense News.

China is developing its nuclear arsenal at a scale and complexity that has not been seen in the country before, which includes expanding the amount of land, sea, and air-based delivery platforms China can draw in the future. 

Moreover, investment and construction have also expanded and the report remarked that China will “probably have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2023.” However, this isn’t the most worrying finding of the report. 

Many of the new nuclear weapons being added to China’s arsenal will be deployed at a level of readiness that will allow Beijing to continue the growth of its nuclear arsenal and put China on track to complete its modernization. 

The Department of Defense estimated that China will reach President Xi Jinping’s goal of becoming a world-class military power by 2049, meaning Beijing would be able to go toe-to-toe with the United States in a possible war.

“What they’re doing now, if you compare it to what they were doing about a decade ago, it really far exceeds that in terms of scale and complexity,” an unnamed Department of Defense official told Politico about China’s efforts. 

“They’re expanding and investing in their land, sea, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms, as well as the infrastructure that’s required to support this quite major expansion of their nuclear forces,” the official added. 

A key to China’s future success will be its “new fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities” the report commented, which it noted will be used to “produce plutonium for its nuclear weapons program” despite China saying the tech is used for peaceful purposes. 

The construction of three new solid-propellent fuel silo fields was completed in 2022 and these fields can house as many as 300 new intercontinental ballistic missile silos, which will give the country a greater nuclear readiness. 

“This obviously raises a lot of concerns for us,” a senior defense official explained about the Chinese nuclear issue on October 18th. “What we’d really like to see is for them to be more transparent about their nuclear buildup. 

CNN noted that the defense official added the United States wanted to see “greater interest” on the Chinese side to discuss “strategic stability and risk reduction issues.” However, it is unclear if that will happen in the future. 

China has moved toward a far more aggressive international posture in recent years as part of the country’s mission to revamp the Chinese image on the world stage and turn China into one of the world’s leading powers. 

Military expansion in China isn’t limited to its nuclear arsenal according to the report by the Department of Defense, which wrote that Beijing has also expanded the country’s submarine and surface ships assets by 30 vessels. 

China’s defense budget was also increased by 7.1% which may help Beijing bridge its current military gaps. At present, China is far behind the U.S. and Russia in its nuclear capacity with America’s arsenal sitting at 5224 and Russia’s at 5,880, Politico reported. 

the Pentagon report also noted that china will likely have 1,500 operational nuclear warheads by 2035 if the country's expansion of its arsenal continues at its current pace of modernization and production.

“China is aggressively pursuing a rapid expansion and modernization of its nuclear forces,” the Head of Integrated Deterrence at the Pentagon John Plumb said while speaking at a Brookings Institute event. “The speed and scale has been nothing short of breathtaking.”