China Has Significantly Expanded Nuclear Arsenal, Hopes To Double It To Over 1,000 Warheads By 2030: US

A US report has said that China has significantly increased its nuclear arsenal, but remains committed to its "no-first strike" policy.

A Pentagon report has said that China has significantly expanded its nuclear arsenal in the past years and hopes to double the same to over 1,000 warheads, from its current capacity of nearly 500 warheads, by 2030. The annual report by the US further stated that China, meanwhile, remained committed to a "no-first strike" policy, reported BBC. Washington stated though the stockpile exceeded projections, China is still behind Russia and the United States.

According to the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Russia has a nuclear arsenal of around 5,889 warheads, while the US can field 5,244, the report added. 

"We're not trying to suggest a very large departure from where they [China] looked to be headed... but we are suggesting that they're on track to exceed those previous projections," a senior US defence official told reporters on Thursday, as quoted by BBC. He added that the issue "raises a lot of concerns for [the US]".

The US Department of Defence, in 2021, estimated that China had around 400 warheads. President Xi Jinping has already declared China will field a "world-class military" by 2049. The recent Pentagon report states that China's current drive to grow its nuclear arsenal was set to "dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity".

These fields include at least 300 new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBMs) silos, the report said. These are ballistic missiles with a range greater than 5,500km (3,400 miles), the BBC report added.

Pentagon said that the People's Liberation Army rocket forces have also been eyeing to develop ICBMs that "would allow the People's Republic of China to threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental US, Hawaii and Alaska". The detailed report state that despite an increase in its arsenal, China remained "committed to a policy of 'deterrence' of an enemy first strike and 'counterstrike' when deterrence fails".

The findings come amid a tense US-China relationship. On Wednesday, Washington accused Chinese air force pilots of conducting hundreds of "coercive and risky" manoeuvres against US military planes in international air space over the Pacific. The Pentagon released the videos and photos of the same adding that there had been 180 manoeuvres like that since autumn 2021.