China is increasing its nuclear capacity faster than any other country, a shock new report has found. In the annual SIPRI report, China's nuclear arsenal increased from 410 warheads in January 2023 to 500 in January 2024 and is expected to keep growing.
The report claimed that China may also now be deploying a small number of warheads on missiles during peacetime.
World's nuclear capacity in January 2024
SIPRI
"China is expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any other country," said Hans M. Kristensen, Associate Senior Fellow with SIPRI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme and Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
"But in nearly all of the nuclear-armed states there are either plans or a significant push to increase nuclear forces."
China now has more warheads than the UK and France combined.
Beijing is still far behind both Russia and the US but experts have warned that if China continues expanding its nuclear arsenal at this rate it will outpace both the US and China in a decade.
Projections on China's stockpile of nuclear weapons over the next 10 years
American Scientists
The report read: "China could potentially have at least as many intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as either Russia or the USA by the turn of the decade, although its stockpile of nuclear warheads is still expected to remain much smaller than the stockpiles of either of those two countries."
It comes as Jens Stolenburg warned NATO is in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons, taking them out of storage and placing them on standby, in the face of a growing threat from Russia and China.
Jens Stoltenberg revealed there were live consultations between members to use transparency around its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent.
"I won't go into operational details about how many nuclear warheads should be operational and which should be stored, but we need to consult on these issues. That's exactly what we're doing," he said.
China's second nuclear missile
GETTY
Nuclear-powered Type 094A Jin-class ballistic missile submarine of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is seen during a military display in the South China Sea
REUTERS
"Transparency helps to communicate the direct message that we, of course, are a nuclear alliance."
The think tank says China is thought to have deployed 24 warheads on missiles.
The UK has not increased its nuclear weapons arsenal in 2023 however its warhead stockpile is expected to grow in the future as a result of the Tory government investment in 2021 that announced it was raising its warhead limit from 225 to 260.
"We are now in one of the most dangerous periods in human history," said Dan Smith, SIPRI Director.
"There are numerous sources of instability—political rivalries, economic inequalities, ecological disruption, an accelerating arms race. The abyss is beckoning and it is time for the great powers to step back and reflect. Preferably together."
It comes as a separate report in the US warning that China is some 15 years ahead on developing high-tech nuclear power as Bejing's state-backed technology and financing is giving it the edge over Western powers.
China has 27 nuclear reactors under construction with average construction timelines of about seven years, far faster than other countries, said the study by Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute.
"China’s rapid deployment of ever-more modern nuclear power plants over time produces significant scale economies and learning-by-doing effects, and this suggests that Chinese enterprises will gain an advantage at incremental innovation in this sector going forward," the report said.
