China's stockpile of nuclear weapons is the world's third-largest, estimated at 620 nuclear warheads as of 2026. China was the fifth country to develop nuclear weapons, conducting its first test in 1964 and its first thermonuclear test in 1966. One of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China conducted 45 nuclear tests before signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. China is significantly expanding its arsenal, projected to reach 1,000 warheads by 2030 and up to 1,500 by 2035. Compared to the arsenals of the United States and Russia, China's warheads are believed to have a similar technological level, with a much smaller proportion deployed on delivery systems, and the remainder stored separately. Since 2020, the People's Liberation Army has operated a nuclear triad. An estimated 509 warheads are assigned to Dongfeng ballistic missiles, 72 to JL-3 missiles on Type 094 submarines, and 20 to Xi'an H-6 strategic bombers. China is upgrading its triad with the development of the Xi'an H-20 stealth bomber, Type 096 submarine, hypersonic glide vehicles, and larger missile silo fields. Its early warning systems include at least three satellites, and four large phased array radars. China's anti-ballistic missiles include HQ-29, HQ-19, and S-400 systems. Since 1964, China has declared a no-first-use policy and called for an international no-first-use treaty. It has not fielded tactical nuclear weapons. Prior to the 21st century, China held to a minimal deterrence policy focused on countervalue targets. Officially, China's nuclear command and control requires the Politburo and Central Military Commission to jointly authorize the alerting and use of nuclear weapons. In the 2020s, some of China's nuclear forces are believed to have adopted a launch on warning posture. China consistently rejects official bilateral arms control talks with the US, on the grounds of its much smaller stockpile. In the early Cold War's Korean War and Taiwan Strait Crises, China confronted US nuclear threats, which were partially deterred by the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The Soviet Union transferred nuclear and missile technology from 1955 until the early Sino-Soviet split in 1960. The Rocket Force has operated most Chinese nuclear delivery systems since its 1966 founding as the Second Artillery Corps. Following the Sino-Soviet border conflict, China viewed the Soviet Armed Forces as its greatest threat, until a détente in 1989. China's nuclear weapons planning refocused on the US in the early 2000s, with relations strained by the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis and US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. China's civilian and military nuclear industries are operated by China National Nuclear Corporation, formerly the Second Ministry of Machine Building. All documented nuclear tests, 23 atmospheric and 22 underground, were conducted at Lop Nur Nuclear Test Base in Xinjiang. China is believed to have halted weapons-grade nuclear material production in 1990. China substantially aided Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, and influenced the programs of India and Taiwan. Like other CTBT adherents, China is believed to use supercomputers and inertial confinement fusion in a program analogous to stockpile stewardship. China is also reported to have operated chemical and biological weapons programs during the Cold War and possibly beyond.
History
Pre-program Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Mao Zedong referred to nuclear weapons as a paper tiger which, although they would not determine the outcome of a war, could still be used by great powers to scare and coerce. Four days after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Mao first argued against overstating the military significance of nuclear weapons, writing "Why didn't Japan surrender when the two atom bombs were dropped on her and why did she surrender as soon as the Soviet Union sent troops?" In 1946 comments to American journalist Anne Louise Strong, he stated, "The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the US reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't. Of course, the atom bomb is a weapon of mass slaughter, but the outcome of a war is decided by the people, not one or two new types of weapon." During the Korean War, the US prepared contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against China, but feared doing so would result in Soviet attacks on US-occupied Japan. Even prior to China's entry into the war, mobilized forces in northeast China that would become the People's Volunteer Army (PVA) were deeply demoralized by potential US nuclear attacks, with political commissar Du Ping reporting psychological debilitation in 10% of troops. The May 1953 US Upshot–Knothole Grable nuclear test of a nuclear artillery system is sometimes considered a contributing factor to the July Korean Armistice Agreement, to which China's People's Volunteer Army was a signatory. After 1952, the Eisenhower administration pursued the New Look policy through which nuclear weapons would be viewed as a "virtually conventional" force. United States nuclear weapons were deployed to Guam in 1951, Japan in 1954, the Philippines in 1957, and South Korea and Taiwan in 1958. In 1962, British nuclear weapons were deployed to Singapore. Some scholars write that the Eisenhower administration's threats during the First Taiwan Strait Crisis to use nuclear weapons against military targets in Fujian province prompted Mao to begin China's nuclear program. Mao favored China's development of nuclear weapons because "In today's world, if we don't want to be bullied by others, we should have atomic weapons by all means." Mao's attitude toward nuclear weapons sometimes strained relations with the Soviet Union, which regarded his statements as cavalier, particularly his 1955 assertion that:
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