The US Department of Defense on Wednesday released its annual report which gives a detailed assessment of China's military capabilities. The key and most alarming element to the report suggests China is planning to quadruple its nuclear weapons stockpile over the next decade.
The new analysis finds that for the 2020 review, the Pentagon woefully underestimated China's expanding ambitions regarding its nuclear arsenal. Whereas last year's estimate forecast the country would have more than 400 nuclear warheads by 2030, the new 2021 report posits over 700 by 2027, and with a likely intent by China to produce over 1,000 warheads by 2030.
However, the report underscores that in tandem with rapidly increasing warhead production, delivery systems are being updated with an aim to heighten nuclear triad readiness, as Bloomberg quotes from the Pentagon review:
"The PRC is investing in, and expanding, the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces," the Defense Department said. That means China "has possibly already established a nascent nuclear triad" of delivery systems, it said, and is supporting its nuclear expansion "by increasing its capacity to produce and separate plutonium by constructing fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities."
Perhaps more interesting is that the report strongly suggests China has sped up its nuclear preparedness as a direct reaction to the US military's heightened presence in the South China Sea by the end of the Trump administration.
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