China's growing nuclear arsenal

(Corrects spelling of 'nuclear' in media keywords of Aug 20 story, no change to story text.)

By David Lague

HONG KONG (Reuters) -Alongside a massive build-up in conventional military firepower, China has embarked on a rapid and sustained increase in the size and capability of its nuclear forces, according to the U.S. military and arms control experts.

The commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, General Anthony Cotton, told Congress in March that the directive from Chinese leader Xi Jinping that China’s military be ready to seize Taiwan by 2027 was driving a build-up of nuclear weapons that could be launched from land, air and sea.

In its 2023 national defense policy, China renewed its longstanding pledge that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. The so-called “no first use” policy also includes a promise that China will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear armed state.

In response to questions, the defense ministry in Beijing said “a nuclear war cannot be won and must not be waged.” China, it said, adhered to a “nuclear strategy of self-defense and pursues a no-first-use policy.”

[Read the special report on Japan and South Korea's shifting nuclear policies.]

In its annual report on Chinese military power, the Pentagon said despite China’s public stance, its strategy probably includes a possible first use in response to conventional attacks that threaten the viability of its nuclear forces, command and control or that approximates the effect of a nuclear strike. Beijing would also probably consider nuclear first use if a conventional military defeat in Taiwan “gravely threatened” the Communist regime’s survival, the Pentagon said in the report published late last year.

China’s defense ministry said it opposed “any attempt to hype up the so-called ‘Chinese nuclear threat’ in an effort to smear and defame China and deliberately mislead the international community.”

China is expanding and modernizing its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power and has accumulated about 600 warheads, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based non-profit.

It said China is building about 350 new missile silos and several new bases for road mobile launchers. It estimated that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, had about 712 launchers for land-based missiles but not all were assigned for nuclear weapons. Of those launchers, 462 can be loaded with missiles “that can reach the continental United States,” it said.

Many of the PLA’s launchers are for shorter range missiles intended to attack regional targets but most of those were not assigned for a nuclear strike, the Bulletin’s assessment said.

In its report, the Pentagon estimated that the PLA would have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, as it seeks to build a bigger force ranging from low-yield precision strike missiles to intercontinental ballistic missiles with multi-megaton explosive impact.

(Reporting by David Lague. Edited by Peter Hirschberg.)