August 06, 2025
How Big Will China’s Nuclear Arsenal Get?
This article was originally published in Defense One.
Since 2020, China is believed to have tripled its nuclear arsenal to 600 warheads—enough to begin to shift the strategic balance, if still well short of the thousands held by the United States and Russia.
“China’s trying to catch up because, you know, they’re, they’re very substantially behind, but within five or six years they’ll be even,” President Trump said in February.
China’s nuclear expansion is already feeding an arms race—a contest that is accelerating partly because the finish line remains unknown.
But will they? Perhaps the biggest unknown of this new nuclear age is how many weapons Beijing will ultimately hold. Its buildup has a few logical endpoints, and by examining each possibility, observers can better understand what China is seeking.
The best place to start to game out where China’s nuclear program is going is to look back at where it has been. Beijing first tested a nuclear weapon in October 1964 and from then until the late 2010s practiced a strategy of minimal nuclear deterrence. That meant maintaining only a couple hundred nuclear weapons, eschewing nuclear arms racing with Washington and Moscow, and instead investing in growing the Chinese economy and the conventional forces of its military, the People’s Liberation Army. Fast forward to the current decade, and Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping has shed his country’s historical approach and expanded the country’s nuclear arsenal at a speedy clip.
Read the full article on Defense One.
More from CNAS
-
China Military Scholar Elsa Kania on the PLA’s Dramatic Modernisation
Podcast
Today we speak with Elsa B. Kania, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, about China’s military modernisation. How good is the People’s Liberation A...
By Elsa B. Kania
-
Commentary
Indo-Pacific Security / Technology & National Security
Trump’s Crackdown on Foreign Students Is a Gift to ChinaWhen top global talent no longer sees America as a stable, long-term bet — in light of both visa and research funding insecurity — many will vote with their feet....
By Jordan Schneider
-
Assessing China’s Nuclear Decision-Making
Reports
China’s rapid nuclear buildup is raising questions about how the country makes decisions related to nuclear weapons. This policy brief analyzes that trend by presenting three ...
By Jacob Stokes
-
Articulate a Comprehensive, Coherent China Strategy
Commentary
President Trump should articulate a comprehensive, coherent China strategy that addresses U.S. objectives, the ways and means to achieve them, and how the strategy can mitigat...
By Jacob Stokes
