An unpacific contest
The Pentagon warns that China is fast building up its nuclear arsenal
When america and the Soviet Union raced each other to build ever-larger nuclear arsenals during the cold war, China ambled disdainfully. It did not detonate its first nuclear weapon until 1964 and kept only a few hundred warheads compared with the tens of thousands piled up by the superpowers. To this day it maintains it will never be the first to use nukes in a war. Even so, China is sprinting to catch up.
In its latest annual assessment, the Pentagon says China’s stockpile of nuclear warheads, which last year it reckoned to be in the “low-200s”, could triple to about 700 by 2027 and will probably quintuple to 1,000 or more by 2030. That is sharply higher than America’s previous forecast that the arsenal would double in size by then. That would still leave it smaller than America’s or Russia’s: those countries each have about 4,000 warheads.
The report’s conclusions explain America’s alarm about China’s military modernisation. Hitherto the greatest worry has been about its conventional arms, notably its growing ability to overwhelm and invade Taiwan, and stop America from coming to the rescue. Now the anxiety is spreading to the nuclear domain.
Speculation about the nuclear build-up mounted in June and July, when researchers spotted that China was building hundreds of missile silos in Gansu, a western province, and in Xinjiang, its neighbour. Then the generals were stunned by China’s testing of a new weapon—a hypersonic glide vehicle mounted on a large rocket— that could deliver a nuclear warhead at high speed while evading anti-missile defences. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, said it was close to being a “Sputnik moment”—the shock America felt when the Soviet Union sent the first satellite into orbit in 1957.
The Pentagon believes China is building fast-breeder reactors to make more weapons-grade plutonium; may already have created a full “triad”, ie, the ability to launch nuclear weapons from the land, sea and air; and is expanding its early-warning systems, with help from Russia.
All told, China is shifting to a “launch on warning” doctrine. Rather than rely on a minimal deterrent to retaliate after an initial nuclear attack, China would henceforth fire at the first sign of an incoming strike, even before the enemy warheads have landed. This posture is akin to that of America and Russia, notes James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment, a think-tank in Washington, “but increases the risk of inadvertent launch, such as a response to a false warning”.
Some Chinese strategists have debated moving to “mutual assured destruction”— the doctrine that animated both superpowers in the cold war—and even have discussed when it would make sense to be first to use nuclear weapons. They have also considered low-yield weapons that could be used in a limited manner, without initiating all-out nuclear war.
Why should China be building up its nukes? After all, America and Russia this year extended the New start treaty, which limits their arsenals. America is thinking of reducing the role of nuclear weapons by declaring that their “sole purpose” is to deter or retaliate against nuclear attack.
One reason is China’s worry that its arsenal is too small to survive an American first strike. Many of its warheads could be destroyed by nuclear weapons or accurate conventional missiles; any remaining ones that are launched might then be taken out by America’s anti-missile systems.
China is modernising its land-based missiles by building mobile launchers with solid-fuel rockets, which are easier to hide and quicker to fire than older models. It is also working on its triad. As well as deploying more nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles, China has brought into service the h6-n bomber, which can also launch such a weapon. And it has deployed an earlier version of a hypersonic missile, the df-17 (pictured).
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, says he wants to build a “world-class” military force by 2049, the centenary of the Communist Party’s takeover, as part of the “great revival of the Chinese nation”. A powerful country, it seems, must have powerful nuclear forces to match—especially if it is going to stand up to America.