WASHINGTON - China’s military is now in possession of more than 600 operational nuclear warheads, according to a new report from the Pentagon, tripling its estimated arsenal in just four years.
Beijing plans to continue building its stockpile through to at least 2035, the report says, and is on track to “probably” have 1,000 warheads by 2030 as part of an effort to be able to “dissuade, deter, or if ordered defeat third-party intervention in the Indo-Pacific.”
The estimates were published in the Pentagon’s annual China Military Power report, which is mandated by the U.S. Congress. It also comes about three months after China’s first successful test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile in more than four decades.
Pentagon planners as recently as 2020 had believed that China’s nuclear arsenal was at around 200 warheads and on track to hit 400 by 2030. But they dramatically shifted that estimate in the 2022 annual report to 1,000 warheads by 2030 and up to 1,500 by 2035.
The United States has about 5,000 nuclear warheads, just behind Russia’s approximately 5,500 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists’ 2024 Status of World Nuclear Forces report.
Nuclear war
The 2024 China Military Power report says that China’s aim in beefing up its nuclear arsenal is to “enable it to target more U.S. cities, military facilities, and leadership sites than ever before in a potential nuclear conflict,” a historical shift away from its standard approach.
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In the past, the report explains, Beijing assumed “being able to inflict even limited damage during a nuclear counterstrike was sufficient for deterrence,” meaning that it did not need many warheads.
But Chinese military leaders now seek “to have the ability to inflict far greater levels of overwhelming damage to an adversary in a nuclear exchange, as well as engage in multiple rounds of counterstrike.”
China “prioritizes maintaining a nuclear force able to survive a first strike and respond with sufficient strength to conduct multiple rounds of counterstrike, deterring an adversary with the threat of unacceptable damage to its military capability, population, and economy,” it says.
But the report cautions that China is not seeking nuclear war.
Chinese military leaders are likely selecting potential “nuclear strike targets” in rival nations with an eye to achieving de-escalation in any conflict, and a speedy “return to a conventional conflict,” it says.
“PLA planners would probably avoid a protracted series of nuclear exchanges against a superior adversary, and state that the scale and intensity of retaliatory force needs to be carefully controlled,” it adds, using an acronym for China’s People’s Liberation Army.
Economic heft
Last year’s China Military Power report suggested the country’s military modernization was being hampered by economic woes, including a slumping real estate sector and rampant youth unemployment.
This year’s report says that while China’s annual growth is expected to slow from 5.2% in 2023 to around 4% in 2034, military expenditures will continue to rise –- even far above the officially reported amounts.
In fact, total expenditures on the military could be as much as “40% to 90% more than it announces in its public defense budget,” the report says, implying a true 2024 defense budget of US$330-450 billion.
By comparison, the U.S. military has requested about US$850 billion for 2025, up from its approximately $842 billion request this year.
Edited by Malcolm Foster