Despite the expansion, China’s military remains riddled with corruption, and an ongoing purge may affect its short-term nuclear readiness, the Pentagon says.
China’s military is undergoing a massive nuclear expansion and remains on track to have as many as 100 nuclear warheads by the end of 2030, despite a slowdown in production last year, according to the Pentagon’s latest assessment of the country’s armed forces.
“China’s historic military buildup has made the U.S. homeland increasingly vulnerable,” the Pentagon said in an annual report submitted to Congress on Dec. 23.
“China maintains a large and growing arsenal of nuclear, maritime, conventional long-range strike, cyber, and space capabilities able to directly threaten Americans’ security.”
The 2025 China Military Power Report assessed that the pace of producing deliverable nuclear missiles had slowed over the past year, although it didn’t mention the reasons for the slowdown.
“China’s stockpile of nuclear warheads remained in the low 600s through 2024, reflecting a slower rate of production when compared to previous years,” the report reads.
Nevertheless, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has “continued its massive nuclear expansion,” it notes, and is still on track to have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.
Aside from expanding its nuclear arsenal, the report highlighted that Beijing has made progress toward an “early warning counterstrike” capability, similar to the West’s “launch on warning.” This would enable Chinese authorities to authorize a nuclear retaliatory launch once an enemy strike is confirmed but before detonation.
“China likely will continue to refine and train on this capability throughout the rest of the decade,” the Pentagon said.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never publicly disclosed the size of its nuclear stockpile. In September 2024, the Chinese military test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the first in decades. Analysts have speculated that the tested missile was a DF-41, which is capable of traveling an estimated 9,300 miles, but the Pentagon report assessed it was an older version, the DF-31B, stating that the missile flew approximately 6,835 miles before impacting the ocean near French Polynesia.
In addition, the report notes that China’s military had likely loaded “more than 100” solid-propellant ICBMs into silo fields at three facilities in northwestern China that house DF-31-class ICBMs.
However, a far-reaching anti-graft campaign in the military establishment “is very likely creating reverberations within China’s nuclear forces and may be raising questions among leadership about force readiness,” the report said.
China’s conventional and nuclear missiles are managed by a secretive PLA unit called the Rocket Force, established by CCP leader Xi Jinping on the final day of 2015. Over the past three years, the force’s four commanders—Wei Fenghe, Zhou Yaning, Li Yuchao, and Wang Houbin—have been ensnared in the anti-corruption campaign.
By Dorothy Li
