China’s expansion of its capabilities comes as SIPRI warns that while the total number of nuclear warheads around the world is declining as Cold War-era weapons are phased out, the number of operational warheads ready for use in the event of conflict is steadily increasing year by year.
About 2,100 deployed nuclear warheads have been placed on “high operational alert” for ballistic missiles — most of them Russian or US-owned, but this is the first time China has placed some of its nuclear warheads on this level of alert, SIPRI noted.
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Hans M. Christensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists and an associate senior fellow at SIPRI, said in a statement that China was “growing its nuclear arsenal faster than any other country,” but added that “nearly all nuclear-weapon states are planning or are making significant advances in their nuclear arsenals.”
SIPRI’s estimate is in line with figures recently included in a Department of Defense report to Congress, which said China would likely have “more than 500” operational nuclear warheads by May and was “on track to exceed previous projections.”
At a recent conference on nuclear disarmament, Biden administration officials warned that the United States may need to field more nuclear weapons if rivals such as Russia and China continue down this path.
“Unless there is a change in the trajectory of our adversaries’ nuclear arsenals, we may reach a stage in the next few years where we will need to increase our current deployments,” Pranay Badi, a nuclear weapons expert at the National Security Council, said this month at the Arms Control Association’s annual meeting in Washington.
China has had a relatively small stockpile of about 200 nuclear warheads for many years but has been building up its stockpile “very rapidly” in recent years, said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and in Carnegie China, who was not involved in the SIPRI study.
Although the Chinese government denies that it is in the midst of a major nuclear arsenal buildup, if the growth continues at the current pace, it could have more than 700 nuclear warheads by 2027 and reach 1,000 a decade later, based on the current trajectory, Zhao said.
The 2030 estimate is less than one-fifth of the U.S.’s current stockpile of nuclear warheads, which stood at 5,044 as of January, according to the SIPRI report. Russia has 5,580, according to the report.
“Personally, I don’t believe China has made the decision to achieve nuclear parity with the United States,” Zhao said, “but I understand that many U.S. experts already assume that nuclear parity is a Chinese expansion goal.”
China’s quiet nuclear buildup is coming amid a variety of ongoing conflicts around the world, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The war in Ukraine has had a “negative impact” on nuclear arms control talks, “reducing opportunities to break the long-standing impasse in nuclear arms control and reverse the worrying trend of nuclear-armed states developing and deploying new weapons systems,” SIPRI said in the report.
Speaking at an arms control event in Washington this month, Vadi said China, along with Russia and North Korea, are “expanding and diversifying their nuclear arsenals at a ferocious pace and showing little interest in arms control.”
He added that the three countries and Iran are “increasingly cooperating and coordinating in ways that are counter to peace and stability, threaten the United States, our allies and partners, and exacerbate tensions in the region.”
Among China’s recent efforts are: Zhao said the country would build out its nuclear triad capabilities by increasing the number of submarines and adding an airborne element in addition to its existing land-based launch capabilities.
“This is a big change,” Zhao said, “because historically China has criticized the U.S. and Russia for maintaining a triumvirate.”
SIPRI said that for the first time, China appears to have deployed a small number of nuclear warheads in peacetime, mounting them on missiles rather than storing them separately from the warheads that can be fired at targets. Of China’s 500 nuclear warheads, 24 were deployed as of January, less than 5% of China’s stockpile, the report said.
In contrast, the United States has 1,770 deployed of its 3,708 nuclear warheads, nearly half of which are prepared (its stockpile of 5,044 warheads includes both existing and future warheads to be dismantled).
Zhao said it was not clear what was behind the recent changes in Beijing’s nuclear posture. “Based on my own research, I believe that China’s recent nuclear expansion is not driven by any clearly defined military objectives,” he said.
Rather, Chinese President Xi Jinping appears to believe that stronger strategic capabilities can influence Western perceptions of China and persuade the United States and other countries to treat China as “an equally powerful country, worthy of respect and equal treatment,” he said.
