People's Republic of China (PRC)

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NPT Nuclear Weapon State

1. Arsenal Size:
   Most opaque nuclear weapons state; limited open source information.
   Approx. 176 deployed warheads (approximately 240 warheads in stockpile).
   
   Key Delivery Systems:
   • Approximately 121 land-based missiles.
   • 20 strategic bombers.
   • one ballistic missile submarine equipped with 12 submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
   • no credible evidence to confirm that non-strategic weapons still remain in operational force.
2. Estimated Destructive Power: Unknown
3. Military Fissile Material Stockpile: (estimates)
   Plutonium: 4 mt (+/- 50 %)
   HEU: 22 mt
4. Disarmament and Commitments to Reduce Arsenal Size
   Legal obligation to pursue global disarmament under Article VI of the NPT.

   Future Commitments
   In support of verifiable FMCT negotiation. The treaty should not cover existing stockpiles.

   
   China is the only country of NPT NWS to continue to increase its nuclear arsenal.
5. Nuclear Weapons Policies
   
   1. Nuclear testing:
   • Observed nuclear testing moratorium since July 1996.
   • Signed but not ratified CTBT.
   
   2. Use of nuclear weapons:
   • Adopted no-first use policy.
   • Committed not to use nuclear weapons against members of Tlatelolco, Rarotonga, and Pelindaba. Has not signed Bangkok, but reiterates its support.
   • Acknowledged the commitments of the NWS to negative security assurances in UN Security Council Resolution 984 (1995).

Sources:

Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2008,” Nuclear Notebook, Natural Resources Defense Council, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, July/August 2008, pp. 42-45.

Hans M. Kristensen, "Chinese Nuclear Arsenal Increased by 25 Percent Since 2006, Pentagon Report Indicates," FAS Strategic Security Bolg, http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/03/chinese_nuclear_arsenal_increa.php

Joseph Cirincione, et. al., Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction, Revised Edition, (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005)

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This material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2007 by MIIS.

 

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