Nuclear weapons of China

China has expanded its nuclear arsenal faster than any other state this decade. Its stockpile reached an estimated 620 warheads at the start of 2026, up from about 500 two years earlier, with about 34 warheads assessed as deployed, up from 24. SIPRI notes the rise of 20 warheads in a year was the slowest in recent years, and the Pentagon's December 2025 report says the stockpile remained in the low 600s through 2024, reflecting a slower rate of production, while still projecting more than 1,000 warheads by 2030.

About 320 silos have been built across three desert fields at Yumen, Hami and Yulin, and the Pentagon assesses that more than 100 of them have been loaded with DF-31-class missiles; the older DF-5 silo force is being roughly doubled to about 50. The same assessment describes an early-warning counterstrike posture, with some warheads now mated to missiles at higher readiness, a break with decades of de-alerted practice.

The emerging triad combines DF-5, DF-31 and DF-41 intercontinental missiles, six Type 094 submarines with the JL-3 missile, and the H-6N bomber armed with the JL-1 air-launched ballistic missile. The anniversary parade of 3 September 2025 showed the full triad for the first time: the DF-61 road-mobile ICBM, the silo-based DF-31BJ, the DF-5C liquid-fuelled ICBM, the JL-3 submarine-launched missile and the JL-1.

Beijing has declared a no-first-use policy since its first test at Lop Nur in October 1964 and presents its arsenal as a minimum deterrent. China is a nuclear-weapon state under the NPT and has signed but not ratified the CTBT. It is party to no arms-reduction treaty and has so far declined to join trilateral limitation talks with Washington and Moscow: the US president raised the subject at his Beijing state visit of 14 and 15 May 2026 and again when he received Xi at the White House on 24 September 2026, and China's readouts omitted arms control. Beijing argues its arsenal remains a fraction of American and Russian totals.

On 6 February 2026 the United States formally accused China, at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, of having conducted a decoupled low-yield nuclear explosive test at Lop Nur on 22 June 2020 and of preparing tests with yields of hundreds of tons, the first direct US charge that China had breached its testing moratorium commitment. Beijing rejected the allegation as entirely unfounded; independent analysts have not confirmed it.