China’s Nuclear Buildup in Perspective: No Rush to Overtake the U.S.
On June 30, 2021, the Washington Post published an article on China’s nuclear weapons modernization program with the alarming title, “China is Building More than 100 New Missile Silos in its Western Desert, Analysts Say.” The accompanying article went to say that researchers at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif., had identified up to 120 holes in China’s Gansu province that bear the characteristics of Chinese nuclear missile silos located elsewhere. The impression given by the article was that China was rapidly expanding its fleet of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), posing a severe threat to U.S. security.[1]
The Post’s June 30 article is but one of several recent indications of such a buildup. Last fall, the U.S. Department of Defense issued its 2020 annual report on Chinese military developments in which it stated (without providing any evidence) that “over the next decade, China’s nuclear warhead stockpile…is projected to at least double in size as China expands and modernizes its nuclear forces.”[2] This was followed in February by a report from Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) indicating that “recent satellite images indicate that at least 16 silos are under construction” at the Jilantai ICBM training area in Inner Mongolia, a significant expansion in just a few years since a silo was first described in the area.”[3]
These, and other claims about China’s nuclear buildup, have been widely cited by U.S. defense officials in their requests to Congress for funds to accelerate the replacement of every weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. China’s nuclear arsenal is “undergoing an unprecedented expansion,” Gen. Charles A. Richard, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 20, 2021.[4]
All this needs to be viewed carefully, and with a certain degree of skepticism. Clearly, China is up to something. But is it engaged in a rapid, massive buildup of its nuclear forces, as Richards and others have argued? A close look at the evidence raises considerable doubt about such assertions. Rather, it appears that China is bolstering its capacity to survive a U.S. “counterforce” first strike – one intended to incapacitate China’s nuclear capabilities – and still conduct some retaliatory attacks on U.S. territory.
To better understand China’s nuclear decisionmaking, let’s begin with the basics. Chinese military doctrine holds that China will never launch a nuclear first strike and that it only possesses nuclear weapons to deter a first strike on its territory by another power. In accordance with this policy, it has never built a nuclear force capable of overpowering the U.S. or Russia, but instead has fielded a much smaller arsenal intended for a retaliatory second strike, should it come under attack itself. For this strategy to succeed, however, China must be assured that its relatively modest nuclear force can withstand an enemy’s counterforce first strike and still fire back – a condition some have termed “assured retaliation.”[5]
In line with its “no first use” doctrine, China maintains a relatively small nuclear stockpile when compared to those of the other major nuclear powers. According to June 2021 figures published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China currently possesses approximately 350 nuclear warheads, compared to 5,550 for the United States and 6,255 for Russia. The Chinese figure is said to represent a small increase from the 2020 estimate, reflecting the gradual modernization of Chinese nuclear delivery systems and the replacement of single-warhead payloads on some ICBMs and SLBMs with multiple-projectile (“MIRVed”) warheads.[6]
As for nuclear delivery systems, China is said by the FAS to possess approximately 90 ICBMs capable of reaching the continental U.S., including some silo-based DF-5A and DF-5B along with greater numbers of the solid-fueled, road-mobile DF-31, DF-31A, and DF-31AG. (This compares with the 400 Minuteman-III ICBMs in the U.S. arsenal and the 330 or so ICBMs in the Russian inventory.)
Many of the ICBMs in China’s arsenal are quite old – the DF-5A, for example, dates from 1981. Accordingly, the Chinese are engaged in a gradual effort to replace its older missiles with more modern designs, such as the DF-5C and DF-41 – both of which are expected to carry MIRVed warheads, which increase the missiles’ ability to penetrate U.S. defense systems. With more multiple-warhead missiles replacing single-warhead types, China needs more nuclear munitions, and this largely explains the increase in China’s nuclear stockpile.
China also possesses six Jin-class (Type-094) missile-carrying submarines, and is slowly replacing them with a more modern variant, the Type-096. These will be equipped with a more modern ballistic missile, the JL-3.[7]
Recent analysis of China’s nuclear modernization program by Chinese and Western scholars suggest that Beijing is being driven in part by worries over the reliability of older systems in its existing arsenal, such as the DF-5A ICBM and the Type-094 submarine, and to a greater extent by concerns over the vulnerability of its small ICBM force to a counterforce strike by the United States. Current and planned improvements in the accuracy of U.S. missiles and in the tracking systems used to locate road-mobile Chinese weapons could, it is feared, erase China’s ability to deter a U.S. first strike by retaining an invulnerable second-strike launch capability. China’s leaders are also said to be worried that future improvements in U.S. anti-missile defense systems, such as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) – with its 44 Ground-Based Interceptors now deployed at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. – could destroy the few Chinese missiles that might survive such a U.S. attack.[8]
“Revolutions in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance technologies, coupled with advances in conventional precision weapons, have long rendered China’s nuclear forces vulnerable,” Gerald C. Brown of Valiant Integrated Services wrote in the June 2021 issue of Arms Control Today. “The U.S. ballistic missile defense program threatens to intercept any surviving retaliatory force, further jeopardizing China’s retaliatory capability.” As a consequence, “[China] seems to be moving toward a survivable nuclear force capable of executing a second strike…and [enabling] its missiles being able to penetrate U.S. missile defense systems.”[9]
As part of its gradual modernization and expansion, China is expected to begin deployment of the DF-41 ICBM in the years ahead, requiring the construction of new missile silos. There is no evidence, however, that China is mass-producing the DF-41, and so there is no requirement for hundreds of new silos to house them. Rather, most analysts suspect that the construction of multiple silos in Gansu and elsewhere represents an attempt by China to foil a possible U.S. counterforce first strike, by deploying a limited number of DF-41s among multiple silos (and moving them from one to another), making their exact location difficult to determine at any given moment. There is “a very good chance that China is planning a shell game,” in which it hides a relatively small number of warheads across a network of silos, said Jeffrey Lewis of the Center for Nonproliferation studies in that June 30 Post article.
When examined closely, therefore, China’s modernization program does not suggest a drive to vastly increase the size and strength of its nuclear arsenal but rather a slow and calculated effort to eliminate vulnerabilities in China’s second-strike capabilities and better enhance its ability to deter a first strike by the United States.
Endnotes:
[1] Joby Warrick, “China is building more than 100 new missile silos in its western desert, analysts say,” Washington Post, June 30, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/china-nuclear-missile-silos/2021/06/30/0fa8debc-d9c2-11eb-bb9e-70fda8c37057_story.html
[2] U.S. Dept. of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020, Annual Report to Congress, p. 85, https://media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF
[3] Hans Kristiansen, “China’s Expanding Missile Training Area: More Silos, Tunnels, and Support Facilities,” Feb. 24, 2021, https://fas.org/blogs/security/2021/02/plarf-jilantai-expansion/
[4] Statement of Gen. Charles A. Richard before the Senate Armed Services Comm., April 20, 2021, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Richard04.20.2021.pdf
[5] Fiona S. Cunningham and M. Taylor Fravel, “Assuring Assured Retaliation: China’s Nuclear Posture and U.S.-China Strategic Stability,” International Security, Vol. 40, No. 2 (October 2015), pp. 7–50.
[6] SIPRI, “Global nuclear arsenals grow as states continue to modernize,” June 14, 2021, https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2021/global-nuclear-arsenals-grow-states-continue-modernize-new-sipri-yearbook-out-now
[7] Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, “Nuclear Notebook: Chinese Nuclear forces, 2020,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dec. 10, 2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2020.1846432
[8] Gerald C. Brown, “Understanding the Risks and Realities of China’s Nuclear Forces,” Arms Control Today, June 2021, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2021-06/features/understanding-risks-realities-chinas-nuclear-forces
[9] Ibid. See also Cunningham and Fravel, note 5.