U.S. Says China Will Double Its Number Of Nuclear Warheads by 2030

There is increasing unease in Washington about China’s nuclear ambitions.

The Pentagon says Beijing is on track to double the number of its nuclear warheads by the decade’s end, to 1,000 from 500 — a development that senior U.S. officials have publicly called “unprecedented” and “breathtaking.” China has drastically expanded its nuclear testing facility and continued work on three new missile fields in the country’s north, where more than 300 intercontinental ballistic missile silos have recently been constructed.

China’s transformation from a small nuclear power into an exponentially larger one is a historic shift, upending the delicate two-peer balance of the world’s nuclear weapons for the entirety of the atomic age. The Russian and American arsenals — their growth, reduction and containment — have defined this era; maintaining an uneasy peace between the two countries hinged on open communication channels, agreement on nuclear norms and diplomacy.

In February, in a rare offer for nuclear diplomacy, China openly invited the United States and other nuclear powers to negotiate a treaty in which all sides would pledge never to use nuclear weapons first against one another. “The policy is highly stable, consistent and predictable,” said Sun Xiaobo, director general of the Chinese foreign ministry’s Department of Arms Control, in Geneva on Feb. 26. “It is, in itself, an important contribution to the international disarmament process.”

The invitation came…   as a surprise. While Beijing has long claimed moral superiority over other nuclear powers on this issue — China and India are the only nuclear-armed nations to declare a no-first-use policy — opening the possibility for talks in such a public way is something China hasn’t done in years.

The White House believes that China’s recent offer is a distraction from its broader unwillingness to engage diplomatically on the nuclear portfolio, including its own aggressive buildup. The Biden administration is wrestling with how it can deter both China and Russia without touching off a destabilizing three-way arms race. Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, publicly invited the two nations last summer to hold nuclear arms control deliberations without preconditions. Russia dismissed the offer outright, while China agreed to preliminary talks.

At a follow-on meeting in November, the United States proposed possible measures to manage nuclear risks, such as an agreement to notify one another when their militaries test-launch ballistic missiles.