How Powerful Is China’s Military? The Pentagon’s New China Report Offers Answers
By
Andrew Erickson
Published
8 hours ago
Editor’s Note: Having distilled the 2021 China Military Power Report (CMPR)’s key findings into a six-page summary last week, Dr. Andrew S. Erickson now offers his big-picture conclusions and recommendations.
Q: What’s the biggest revelation from this year’s CMPR?
A: New projections concerning PRC nuclear weapons buildup are clearly the biggest, most important point. And what a difference a year makes! The 2020 CMPR projected roughly a doubling of PRC nuclear warheads by 2030, but now the 2021 edition projects China close to quadrupling its current inventory within that timeframe. Specifically, the Department of Defense (DoD) anticipates that China may have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027, of which roughly 200 warheads will be on land-based ICBMs capable of threatening the United States; and at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.
The new report also assesses related developments of concern: China’s shift to a nuclear triad with a launch-on-warning posture; as well as the pursuit of hypersonic delivery systems, and also apparently of low-yield nuclear weapons. At a time when Beijing increasingly threatens Taipei and Washington and its nuclear-armed allies are not growing their nuclear arsenals or enhancing their nuclear postures significantly, this sticks out alarmingly. And that is even amid, by China, what is arguably the most massive arms buildup in the post-Cold War world over the last thirty years.
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/11/how-powerful-is-chinas-military-the-pentagons-new-china-report-offers-answers/
