China practically triples nuclear arsenal since 2020, Pentagon report says

China has practically tripled its nuclear warhead arsenal since 2020, in accordance with the Pentagon’s newest China navy energy report launched Wednesday.

“DOD estimates the PRC has surpassed 600 operational nuclear warheads as of mid-2024,” a senior U.S. protection official advised reporters this week.

In 2020, the Pentagon estimated China’s nuclear stockpile was within the low 200s.

“The PLA continues its speedy nuclear construct up,” the official stated, utilizing an acronym for the Individuals’s Liberation Military, including that China is anticipated to exceed 1,000 warheads by 2030.

China can be diversifying the sorts of nuclear weapons it is constructing, the official stated.

“Whenever you have a look at what they’re making an attempt to construct right here, it is a diversified nuclear power that might be comprised of programs starting from low-yield precision strike missiles all the way in which as much as ICBMs, with totally different choices at principally each rung on the escalation ladder, which is lots totally different than what they’ve relied on historically,” the official stated.

China’s budding nuclear arsenal, nonetheless dwarfed by these of the U.S. and Russia, is only one a part of a broader technique to construct its affect on the worldwide stage, the official stated.

“The PRC seeks to amass nationwide energy to realize what Xi Jinping has known as the nice rejuvenation of the Chinese language nation by 2049 and to revise the worldwide order in assist of the PRC system of governments and its nationwide pursuits,” the official stated.

Regardless of financial and corruption-related setbacks, China’s navy is making regular progress in modernizing its non-nuclear capabilities as effectively, in accordance with the official.

“In addition they are exhibiting some curiosity in growing a brand new typical ICBM that might strike Hawaii, Alaska and the continental United States. And I feel that is partially to deal with what they’ve seen as a long-standing asymmetry within the U.S.’s potential to conduct typical strikes in opposition to the PRC, and for a lot of a long time, their incapability to achieve out and strike the U.S. territory with something apart from nuclear and ballistic missiles,” the official stated.

Beijing has change into ever extra prepared to make use of navy coercion to assist obtain its goals, in accordance with the DOD report.

“All through 2023, the PRC escalated tensions with the Philippines within the South China Sea by ramming and boarding vessels en route to provide Second Thomas Shoal. The PRC additionally amplified its diplomatic, political and navy stress in opposition to Taiwan in 2023 and into this yr,” the senior protection official stated.

However the Individuals’s Liberation Military has recognized a few of its personal shortcomings, together with with the energy of its leaders, in accordance with the report.

“The PLA to continues to focus on what they confer with because the ‘5 incapables,’ which is a PLA slogan asserting that some PLA commanders are incapable of judging conditions, understanding greater authorities’ intentions, making operational choices, deploying forces or managing sudden conditions,” the protection official stated.

Regardless of a number of mushy spots, the U.S. lists China because the Protection Division’s No. 1 “pacing problem.”

“Our Nationwide Safety Technique identifies the PRC as the one competitor with the intent, and more and more, the potential, to reshape the worldwide order,” the official stated.