Dragon's Dilemma

Given the geographic and demographic size of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), it is indeed remarkable that Beijing has maintained a restrained nuclear policy with a small nuclear force. The country detonated its first nuclear device in 1964. The primary reason why China developed nuclear weapons was “to break the nuclear monopoly of the nuclear powers and to eliminate nuclear weapons”. 1 An estimated 440 nuclear warheads are in the nation’s nuclear arsenal, ready for deployment. 2 Of those, about 346 are land-based ballistic missiles, 72 are with the sea-leg of the nuclear triad, and 10–20 are nuclear gravity bombs that are carried by aircraft. 3 The Pentagon’s 2021 China Report to the US Congress significantly increased the projection for Chinese nuclear weapons, claiming that China “may... have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027” and “at least 1,000 warheads by 2030”. 4 The forecast seems to be based mostly on assumptions about future plutonium production and China’s building of missile silos. 5