China is rapidly expanding and modernizing its nuclear arsenal alongside a sweeping build-up of conventional military power, according to U.S. defense officials and arms control experts.
U.S. Strategic Command chief General Anthony Cotton told Congress in March that Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s directive for the military to be ready to seize Taiwan by 2027 was driving the nuclear push, with Beijing developing launch capabilities from land, air, and sea.
While China reaffirmed its longstanding “no first use” policy in its 2023 national defense paper, pledging never to use nuclear weapons first or against non-nuclear states, Washington remains skeptical.
The Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military power, released late last year, assessed that Beijing could contemplate first use if conventional attacks threatened its nuclear command-and-control systems or if a military defeat over Taiwan endangered Communist Party rule.
China’s defense ministry dismissed those concerns, saying: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must not be waged,” while accusing Washington of exaggerating a “so-called Chinese nuclear threat” to smear Beijing’s global image.
Independent experts, however, point to a significant acceleration in China’s stockpile. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimates Beijing now has around 600 nuclear warheads and is constructing 350 new missile silos along with multiple new bases for mobile launchers.
Of roughly 712 land-based missile launchers, at least 462 are capable of carrying missiles that could reach the continental United States, though not all are nuclear-armed.
The Pentagon projects that China will possess more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, ranging from low-yield precision strike weapons to intercontinental ballistic missiles with multi-megaton capacity, making it the fastest-growing nuclear force in the world.
Analysts say the expansion underscores Beijing’s determination to deter U.S. intervention in any future Taiwan conflict while reshaping the global nuclear balance.
Written By Rodney Mbua
