According to US military report
China will expand nuclear arsenal
11/29/2022, 10:02 pm
The annual report from the US Department of Defense takes a closer look at China’s nuclear arsenal, among other things: Beijing currently has more than 400 operational warheads. The Pentagon fears the stock could quadruple by 2035.
According to estimates by the US Armed Forces, China is significantly accelerating the expansion of its nuclear arsenal and could almost quadruple the number of nuclear warheads by 2035. According to the Defense Department’s published annual report on China to the US Congress, Beijing could “potentially” have an arsenal of about 1,500 warheads by 2035. According to the report, the Pentagon estimates that China’s current inventory is around 400 operational nuclear warheads.
The Pentagon said last year that the number of Chinese nuclear weapons could increase to at least 1,000 by 2030. At the time, the US government announced that it had 3,750 nuclear warheads in stock as of September 2020. The US has destroyed 11,683 nuclear weapons since 1994.
US Defense Department spokesman Pat Ryder said on the report that the more weapons of mass destruction there are, the more worrying it is. “So from a regional and a global stability perspective, we want to make sure we can have an open dialogue to ensure transparency and understand what the intentions are.”
moves into the air force
The Pentagon report on the Chinese military also states that China is also modernizing its ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. China fired about 135 ballistic missiles during tests last year – “more than the rest of the world combined”. Missiles fired during armed conflicts are excluded. The report notes that the leadership in Beijing is also making rapid progress in modernizing its air force, which is drawing closer to the West.
The administration of US President Joe Biden sees an economically and militarily rising China as the world’s biggest geopolitical challenge. Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met for the first time two weeks ago as they were both at the helm of state. A central issue of the conflict was China’s treatment of Taiwan.
