China is expanding nuclear arsenal faster than any other country, new report finds

As the world navigates through China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region, a new report revealed that Beijing is expanding its nuclear forces “faster than any other country”. This means that the country may end up with more inter-continental ballistic missiles than both the United States and Russia.

The report was released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its annual yearbook published on Monday. As per the report, China has added more than 90 warheads to its nuclear stockpile, holding a total of 500 as of January this year.

It is also believed that with this rate, the total number of ICBMs – which currently stands at around 238 – could surpass America’s holding of 800 or even Russia’s total of 1,244 within the next 10 years.

However, SIPRI made it clear that the overall size of the nuclear arsenal is expected to remain much smaller than those held by the two largest nuclear powers in the world. While the United States has 5,044 nuclear warheads, Russia has 5,580.

Nearly all nuclear power is expanding

SIPRI stated that there was an estimated total of 12,121 warheads in the global nuclear stockpile as of January 2024, with Russia and the US together possessing almost 90 per cent of all nuclear arms. Out of this, 9,585 of them have already been used with the rest consisting of retired warheads from the Cold War era, that have not been fully dismantled.

“China is expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any other country,” said Hans Kristensen, associate senior fellow with SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme. “But in nearly all of the nuclear-armed states, there are either plans or a significant push to increase nuclear forces," he added.

However, the research body maintained that the sizes of these respective military stockpiles remained relatively stable in 2023. SIPRI also mentioned that with the growing turbulence around the world, nuclear arms control and disarmament diplomacy had “suffered more major setbacks in 2023”. In the same year, Russia suspended the last treaty on strategic nuclear arms controls with the US.

Meanwhile, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war has also undermined efforts to get Israel to sit down and talk about a nuclear-free Middle East as well as “apparently ending Iranian–US diplomatic efforts”.

“While the global total of nuclear warheads continues to fall as Cold War-era weapons are gradually dismantled, regrettably we continue to see year-on-year increases in the number of operational nuclear warheads,” Dan Smith, the institute’s director averred.

“This trend seems likely to continue and probably accelerate in the coming years and is extremely concerning," he added.

How China is boosting its stocks

The report stated that Beijing was building around 350 new silos for its land-based ballistic missiles. If China fills its new silos that are currently under construction with a single-warhead missile, within the next decade, it will increase the number of warheads it can deploy on its ICBMs to around 650.

However, the report maintained that it is still not clear what China is planning for the silos. But if Beijing keeps up with its pace, the number of ICBM warheads could rise to more than 1,200.

Last year, the Pentagon drew a similar conclusion about China’s nuclear arsenal, estimating it had around 500 operational warheads and predicting that the figure could pass the 1,000 mark by 2030.

“[China’s] expansion of the ICBM is probably influenced by … concern that the United States has the capability to destroy a significant portion of the force in a first strike [and] efforts to overcome the growing capability of US missile defences to intercept ICBMs,” said Kristensen. averred.

“[It is also] an attempt to increase nuclear deterrence forces to allow greater freedom to conduct offensive conventional operations without fear of US intervention," he added.

Amid the allegations, China has never commented on the matter, but said that Washington’s estimates are being used as “a convenient pretext for expanding its own nuclear arsenal aimed at absolute strategic predominance”.

China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Lin Jian has maintained that the country has a “no first use policy” and keeps the minimum number of warheads needed to meet its national security needs.

With inputs from agencies.