The best available sources converge on a stark picture: by January 2025, China’s nuclear stockpile had climbed to about 600 warheads, up from ~500 the previous year, and growing by roughly 100 warheads annually since 2023. This is the fastest expansion among the nine nuclear states and marks a decisive break from Beijing’s long-held image of a very small “minimum deterrent.” [1][2]
The U.S. Department of Defense separately assesses that China surpassed 600 operational warheads by mid-2024—well ahead of earlier projections—and continues to expand the production base to sustain growth through the 2030s. [3]
What the silos say (and don’t)
Commercial imagery and expert analyses since 2021 have documented large new missile fields at Yumen (Gansu), Hami (Xinjiang) and Ordos/Inner Mongolia, with layout density and support infrastructure consistent with solid-fuel ICBM basing. Aggregate counts and follow-on reporting indicate roughly 350 new silos completed or nearing completion by early 2025—an historically rapid expansion of fixed ICBM capacity. [4][5][6]
Earlier field-by-field tallies suggested about 120 silos at Yumen and up to ~110 at Hami, with Ordos still maturing; newer updates point to hundreds overall as ancillary facilities (power, C2, tunnels, technical sites) came online. The bottom line: even if not every silo holds a missile, the shell-game and reload potential complicates adversary targeting and raises survivability. [7][8]
DoD’s 2024 report underscores the scale: ~550 ICBM launchers for ~400 ICBMs—more launchers than the United States, even if many silos are not yet loaded. [9]
A triad with caveats
Land. The silo buildout complements mobile ICBMs (e.g., DF-41), signalling a shift from a boutique force to a layered, redundant land leg aimed at riding out a first strike and guaranteeing retaliation. (Numbers and basing detail are consistent with the infrastructure noted above and DoD force-structure trends.) [10]
Sea. China’s current Type-094 (Jin-class) SSBNs are being associated with the longer-range JL-3 SLBM, but independent reviews of the 2024 DoD report note that the next-generation Type-096—expected to field MIRVed SLBMs—appears not yet in serial construction, keeping questions about acoustic stealth and patrol survivability alive for now. [11][12]
Air. The air leg is emerging: the H-6N bomber is linked to an air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) capability under development, rounding out a rudimentary triad, though far from the operational depth of U.S. or Russian forces. [13]
Posture: from opacity to launch-on-warning
Beijing maintains a declared No-First-Use policy, but doctrine and exercises reflect movement toward Launch-on-Warning (LOW)—what PLA texts call “early-warning counterstrike”. DoD’s 2024 assessment states the PLA is working to implement LOW this decade, supported by ground- and space-based sensors and revised C2, shortening decision time in a crisis and increasing the premium on rapid release authority. [14]
SIPRI also notes that for the first time China is believed to keep a small number of warheads at high operational alert, another indicator of peacetime readiness creeping upward—even as most such alert forces worldwide remain American or Russian. [15]
What Beijing isn’t saying
- Warhead accounting and pacing. China offers no official warhead totals, alert status, or force composition. The 600 figure is an independent estimate; the silence denies interlocutors a baseline for risk-reduction or future arms control. [16]
- Silo loading and decoys. It remains unclear how many new silos are missile-filled today versus empty or used as dummies, an ambiguity that enhances deterrence but complicates stability in a crisis. [17]
- Sea-leg credibility. Official statements avoid details on SSBN patrol patterns, acoustic improvements, or Type-096 timelines, leaving deterrent reliability opaque. [18][19]
- Plutonium pathway. Analysts highlight new reactor and reprocessing capacity that could support future warhead growth, but Beijing offers no clarifying transparency on fissile-material policy for weapons use. [20]
- Civil-military readiness. A sustained anti-corruption purge inside the PLA and defence industry raises questions about programme delays and readiness that China does not publicly reconcile with its deterrence narrative. [21]
What it means for strategic stability
- Crisis compression. LOW plus more alert forces means minutes instead of hours to validate warnings, magnifying false-alarm risks in a Taiwan or South China Sea confrontation. [22]
- Arms-control headwinds. The tri-polar reality (U.S.–Russia–China) erodes the logic of bilateral limits. With China eschewing parity-based caps while scaling up, classical U.S.–Russia frameworks map poorly to today’s geometry. SIPRI’s 2025 findings frame this as a new nuclear age with weakening guardrails. [23]
- Targeting dilemmas. Hundreds of silos enable a shell-game: even with modest missile loading, an adversary must allocate multiple warheads per aimpoint, driving up required strike forces and penalising counterforce strategies. [24]
Likely trajectory to 2030–2035
The Pentagon continues to assess that China is on a path toward ~1,000 warheads by 2030 and potentially ~1,500 by 2035 if current trends persist—numbers still below the U.S. and Russia in total inventories but transformational for East Asian deterrence. [25]
Operationally, expect more survivable basing (matured silo complexes and road-mobile dispersal), incremental sea-leg improvements, and gradual air-leg integration—with posture and C2 refined for faster retaliatory options under LOW. [26][27]
The bottom line
China’s modernisation is no longer a boutique upgrade; it is a systemic scale-up—more warheads, more launchers, more ready posture—executed under deliberate opacity. The silence is strategic: it complicates adversary planning, compresses crisis timelines, and raises the cost of any attempt at disarming strike. For planners and the public alike, understanding **what we can verify—and what Beijing chooses not to say—**is essential to keeping deterrence stable in the decade ahead. [33][34][35]
Further reading
- SIPRI Yearbook 2025 (summary) – global totals, China’s 2024–25 growth, alert status. [36]
- DoD, Military and Security Developments Involving the PRC (2024) – LOW posture, stockpile estimate, force structure. [37]
- FAS/Bulletin “Chinese nuclear weapons, 2025” – force composition and silo developments. [38]
- DEFCON Warning System: Armageddon’s New Arms Race: The 2025 Nuclear Buildup – broader context for the new nuclear age. [39]
