70th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The People’s Republic Of China – Military Parade & Mass Pageantry

The Chinese military’s new DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles are seen at a parade to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, at Tiananmen Square on October 1, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Beijing could produce some 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, the Pentagon stated in its newly released annual report on China, predicting a “dramatically accelerated pace” of nuclear development.

The latest estimate, published today, highlights Chinese plans to ramp up its nuclear stockpile to more than triple its current total of about 400 warheads in little more than a decade, a senior defense official told reporters ahead of the release of the report.

Although China has not publicly changed its “no first use” policy for nuclear weapons and maintains that what it terms a “lean and effective” nuclear arsenal is meant for defensive purposes only, the Pentagon is growing increasingly concerned that China’s growing nuclear weapons stockpile could signal a future shift in China’s nuclear policies, the official stated.

“What we’re looking at here, it raises some questions, I think, about their intent,” the defense official said. “They have not formally changed their policy or their strategy, but they’ve got a program underway that’s going to give them you a set of capabilities that would potentially enable them to consider different policy or strategy choices, beyond the ones that have been open to them in the past.”

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In last year’s report, the Pentagon estimated that China would have 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027, and 1,000 warheads by 2030. Those numbers remain the department’s projections, with the latest figures acting as an extension of the previous forecast, the official said.

Even in 2035, China’s nuclear stockpiles will likely be significantly smaller than those possessed by Russia and the United States. In 2022, the US had about 3,700 warheads in its deployed or reserve stockpiles, while Russia had about 4,500, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

Apart from plans to sharply increase its number of warheads, Beijing has taken other steps to boost the capability of its nuclear arsenal, the Pentagon stated in an executive summary of the report. In 2019, China revealed that it had fielded a nuclear triad with the H-6N, its first nuclear-capable bomber capable of being refueled in midair.

Last year was a particularly busy year for China’s intercontinental ballistic missile corps, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force. The PLARF launched about 135 ballistic missiles during tests and training exercises in 2021 — more than the rest of the world combined, excluding conflict zones, according to the report. It also continued the construction of three new ICBM fields, which will eventually house 300 new ICBM silos.

And although China has stated its intent to strengthen its nuclear deterrent, it has been less willing to discuss its intentions for doing so, which the Pentagon believes could contribute to worldwide instability.

“They’re doing things now that exceed really their previous attempts, both in terms of the scale, the numbers, and also the complexity and technological sophistication of the capabilities,” the official stated, calling China’s nuclear modernization plan a “rapid buildup that is kind of too substantial to keep under wraps.”

Aside from nuclear weapons, the China report highlights other new developments:

No ‘Imminent’ Taiwan Invasion, But A ‘New Normal’ Arrives

2021 saw China escalate tensions with Taiwan, sharply increasing the number of flights into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone and conducting demonstrations — such as island seizure exercises — meant to sharpen skills the Chinese military could need to invade Taiwan, the report summary stated.

And while the Defense Department continues to see no immediate signs that China is preparing to launch an invasion, in 2022 China established a “new normal” in terms of military activity surrounding the self-governed island following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August, the defense official said.

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“They intensified it quite a bit with the missile launches and the other demonstrations that they undertook following her visit. But what we’ve seen since then, is that it has not gone down to the level that we were accustomed to prior to her visit,” the official said.

For instance, China would previously conduct “centerline crossings” — flying aircraft or sailing ships out to the midpoint between China and Taiwan— only when Beijing was trying to send a political message to Taiwan or the United States. However, those crossings have become “sort of routine” after Pelosi’s visit, the official stated.

“Even though we don’t see an imminent invasion, obviously, that’s sort of an elevated level of intimidating and coercive activity around Taiwan,” the official said, adding that the Pentagon will be closely watching to see whether China ramps up such activities ahead of Taiwan’s presidential elections in 2024, as it has done in the past.

A New Operational Concept

In 2021, China unveiled a new operating concept known as Multidomain Precision Warfare, which seems to be Beijing’s answer to the US’s Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

Like JADC2, China’s Multidomain Precision Warfare is a “system of systems” focused on improving its command-and-control infrastructure and inserting artificial intelligence and data analytics. But while JADC2 is centered on networking disparate platforms together to speed up the decision-making process, Multidomain Precision Warfare revolves around using AI to unravel an enemy’s weak points.

“This new concept is intended to help identify key vulnerabilities in an adversary’s operational system and then to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities which could be you know, kinetic or non-kinetic,” the official stated. “Basically, it’s a way that they’re thinking about looking across domains to identify vulnerabilities in an adversary’s operational system and then to exploit those to cause its collapse.”

A More Resilient Defense Industrial Base

As China pursues its military modernization plans, it’s also taking steps to make its defense industrial base more capable. The report notes the strength of China’s missile production capabilities, which the Pentagon believes “are comparable in quality” to other top-tier international manufacturers, as well as its increased shipbuilding capacity.

Another key theme is industrial resilience. In particular, China — like the US — is focused on reducing its reliance on foreign suppliers, a policy it calls “dual circulation,” which can be seen as it transitions from buying aircraft engines from Russia to building them domestically. In 2021, China began equipping its J-10 and J-20 fighters with domestically made engines, and it is expected to field a new Chinese engine for the Y-20 heavy transport aircraft by the end of 2022, the report said.

“The [People’s Republic of China’s] longterm goal is to create an entirely self-reliant defense industrial sector — fused with a strong civilian industrial and technology sector — that can meet the [People’s Liberation Army’s] needs for modern military capabilities,” the report summary said.

“They are concerned about any vulnerability that they face because of reliance on external sources, and they’re trying to, as a result, to make sure that they’re able to do as much as they can domestically,  through acquisition of foreign technology and the like, but also through the development of their own capabilities at home,” the defense official stated.