Pentagon report says Chinese are developing nuclear warheads in numbers "exceeding our expectations"

WASHINGTON, DC- As if there wasn’t enough going on in the world to capture our attention and stoke our concerns, a new report from the Pentagon probably won’t do anything to calm our fears. 

Defense News reports that China has more than doubled its nuclear arsenal in the last three years, a move that a senior Pentagon official calls a “major expansion of their nuclear forces.” 

A newly released China Military Power Report, an annual accounting of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) strength, said that as of May 2023, Beijing had amassed around 500 operational nuclear warheads. In the last report on Chinese nuclear capability–in 2020–it had the number to be “in the low 200s.” 

The Pentagon expects Beijing to have about 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by the decade's end and an additional 500 by 2035. However, that number may be conservative, with a senior defense official acknowledging the growth of the Chinese nuclear program has progressed faster than expected. 

“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’s a trend that we think would continue.” 

However, Beijing’s nuclear development program is not merely contained to the warheads. The report said they have also been developing an inventory of nuclear delivery systems via land, sea, and air. The Chinese Communist Party government has also been investing in infrastructure designed to support the growth of its program. 

For example, the report reveals that China has probably finished construction on three new solid-propellant silo fields, which house some 300 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos. The document states some of those silos likely contain ICBMs. 

Moreover, China has been constructing silos for liquid-fueled ICBMS, which can facilitate a “launch on warning” posture. In other words, the ability to fire more quickly. 

The current push to develop its nuclear program has been a priority of the CCP for decades with the hope of modernizing its military. Chinese president for life Xi Jinping has expressed a desire to have the People’s Liberation Army become a “world-class” military by 2049, the 100-year anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. Xi believes that will be accomplished much sooner, probably by 2035. 

 “Compared to the PLA’s nuclear modernization effort a decade ago, current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity,” the Pentagon report states. 

In response, the DoD in September released an updated strategy designed to counter weapons of mass destruction. This is the first such plan released since 2014 when the Pentagon focused on terrorist groups and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. 

Seeing the moves by China and Russia, the Pentagon has changed its focus toward those two adversaries. 

“China is aggressively pursuing a rapid expansion and modernization of its nuclear forces,” said John Plumb, the Pentagon’s head of integrated deterrence, at a Brookings Institute event. “The speed and scale has been nothing short of breathtaking.” 

“It is a complete transformation of China’s approach to nuclear weapons,” said M. Talor Fravel, professor of political science specializing in security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With the rapid expansion of their nuclear program, Fravel said the latest Pentagon report confirms “that the rapid modernization foreshadowed several years ago is on track,” NPR reported. 

The report was released after a year of increasing tensions between Beijing and Taiwan. China still claims the island as its own and has vowed to take it back someday. 

In August 2020, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a high-profile visit to Taiwan, sparking outrage in China. Beijing responded with large-scale military exercises that virtually encircled Taiwan. Analysts claim the move had a specific purpose: to show how China’s military might create a blockade of Taiwan and cut it off from critical energy supplies at some time in the future. 

China continues to poke at Taiwan, regularly flying sorties of military aircraft around the island and deploying naval vessels around the island. 

The Pentagon report admitted China is targeting Taiwan, stating, “the PLA is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] by force if perceived as necessary by Beijing. 

“We definitely see improvements in their capabilities. Those were demonstrated in certain respects during their response to the then-Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, to President Tsai [Ing-wen]’s transit of the United States,” a senior Pentagon official said. He noted that the “PRC still perceives that they have some shortcomings that they have yet to fully address.”