China’s nuclear arsenal and other elements of its armed forces have grown robustly despite anticorruption investigations that have shaken the People’s Liberation Army at its highest levels, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
China’s navy “continues to develop into a global force, gradually extending its operational reach beyond East Asia,” the Defense Department said in an annual report assessing Beijing’s military strength. It said China also seemed to be exploring the production of conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would give it another option — alongside its 135 or so nuclear long-range missiles — that could be used to threaten the continental United States.
China does not disclose how many nuclear weapons it has. The Pentagon report estimates that it has added about 100 nuclear warheads since last year, bringing its stockpile to more than 600 by mid-2024. That is still much smaller than the arsenals of the United States and Russia, but China appears to be on track to deploy more than 1,000 warheads by 2030, the report said. Russia and the United States each deploy 1,550 strategic nuclear weapons under a treaty that could expire in 2026.
To counter China, the Biden administration has been expanding the United States’ security partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region, making deals that would allow U.S. forces to disperse across small islands and strike China with anti-ship weapons and cruise missiles. The Pentagon report may feed into calls for the incoming Trump administration to focus on China’s rising military strength, even as the United States grapples with Russia’s war in Ukraine and turmoil in the Middle East.
China’s nuclear buildup indicates that its leaders see a need to expand the range of destructive options they could deploy against the United States in a crisis or a war, the Pentagon said. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has developed the country’s arsenal more quickly than any previous leader.
The Pentagon said China seemed to have finished constructing three missile fields with 320 launch silos in its northern deserts and had placed missiles in some of the silos. It said China’s rocket force was building dozens more silos to house Dongfeng-5 intercontinental missiles, each of which can rain multiple warheads on an enemy.
China’s “force modernization suggests that it seeks the ability to inflict far greater levels of overwhelming damage to an adversary in a nuclear exchange,” the report said. China’s “expanding nuclear force will enable it to target more U.S. cities, military facilities and leadership sites than ever before in a potential nuclear counterstrike,” it added.
The advances reported by the Pentagon came despite recent corruption scandals in the Chinese military.
China’s Ministry of National Defense revealed last month that Adm. Miao Hua, a member of the Central Military Commission — the Communist Party body that controls the armed forces — had been suspended on suspicion of “serious violations of discipline,” a phrase that usually means corruption.
In June, party leaders officially accused two recent Chinese defense ministers — Gen. Li Shangfu and Gen. Wei Fenghe — of taking bribes and selling military promotions. Last year, Mr. Xi abruptly replaced two commanders of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, which controls nearly all of China’s nuclear missiles.
Some of the corruption may have involved the silos built for ballistic missiles, but any issues with compromised silos have probably been addressed, the Pentagon report said. The report did not say how U.S. officials had reached those conclusions. The United States uses satellites and other technologies to closely monitor Chinese nuclear sites.
“The extent of the current wave of corruption cases, touching every service in the P.L.A., may have shaken Beijing’s confidence in high-ranking P.L.A. officials,” the report said, referring to the People’s Liberation Army.
Still, disruption to China’s military programs from the scandals seems to have been limited, said Andrew S. Erickson, a professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. “They are fundamentally a speed bump, not a showstopper,” he wrote in an email. “With some of the world’s greatest military resources at his command, Xi is pressing ahead with determination.”
Much of China’s military planning is focused on Taiwan, a self-governed island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory. Leaders in Beijing have long said that they want to peacefully absorb Taiwan into China, but they also say they may resort to war. China has been stepping up naval and air force forays near Taiwan to increase its pressure on the island.
But the Pentagon report concluded that China remains some distance from being able to confidently consider invading Taiwan. It said China had shortcomings in urban warfare, which could be needed to seize Taiwanese cities, and in its ability to sustain supplies at long distances.
An amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be “a significant political and military risk” for the Communist Party and Mr. Xi, “even assuming a successful landing and breakout past Taiwan beachhead defenses,” the report said.
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