China is creating new and expanding existing strategic units to deploy a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons.
The Defense Intelligence Agency of the United States Department of Defense reported on this.
The country is undergoing the fastest expansion and ambitious modernization of its nuclear forces in history, driven by the aim of withstanding strategic competition with the United States.
China is deploying and developing a number of new nuclear capabilities, including the largest accumulation of silo launchers; land-based mobile launchers, and air and submarine launchers.
According to intelligence estimates, by 2030, China will increase its nuclear arsenal to more than 1,000 nuclear warheads. Most of them will be in the form of a growing number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of hitting the continental United States.
The Chinese military is expanding its strategic forces for its arsenal:
- It has deployed about 300 silo launchers for DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs.
- Additional brigades equipped with nuclear and non-nuclear DF-26 ICBM launchers are being created.
- New mobile ICBM brigades are being created with an increase in the number of launchers between 6 and 12 units per brigade.
Since 2021, China has been actively developing an extensive network of mine launchers for intercontinental ballistic missiles in the desert in the Gansu Province of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies discovered a large-scale system of 120 launchers.
The intelligence also notes that China is likely seeking to develop lower-yield nuclear warheads to provide proportionate response options that its existing high-yield warheads cannot provide.
The US agency relies on Chinese military writings, publications by Chinese strategists, data on the defense industry, and subsequent instructions from the country’s president to make its judgments.
Development of China’s Nuclear Deterrence Force
The U.S. Department of Defense estimates that China currently has an arsenal of more than 500 nuclear warheads. And the doubling of the stockpile after 2030 is likely to only continue the build-up.
China also continues to seek qualitative or technical parity with the United States and Russia. These efforts are part of a drive to have a “world-class” military by mid-century, consistent with a “major modern socialist country.”
The country plans to continue significantly modernizing all three links of its nuclear triad, including upgrading existing weapon classes, such as single- and multiple-warhead versions of the DF-5 liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile; developing a new class of nuclear-powered ICBM submarines; and developing a strategic stealth bomber.
Over the past five years, China has upgraded the air part of the nuclear triad, consisting of the PLA’s land, sea, and air forces, with the H-6N bomber. This bomber is capable of air refueling and carrying an air-launched ballistic missile. China publicly demonstrated this bomber during the 2019 National Day parade.
- Units of the first high-precision nuclear weapons carriers, the DF-26 ballistic missiles, which have a declared circular deviation from the target of 100 meters with a maximum range of 5000 km, were deployed.
Also, in recent years, China has commissioned two new Type 094 nuclear submarines, which provided the necessary requirements for continuous deployment of nuclear ballistic missile carriers in open waters in peacetime. In addition, their armament was improved with the introduction of modernized JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Last month, for the first time in 40 years, China launched a DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile beyond its borders.
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