"China Expected to Gain Capability to Deploy 2,000 Nuclear Warheads by 2035"

There is an analysis suggesting that China could develop the capability to deploy 2,000 nuclear warheads by 2035.

On the 26th, Asahi Shimbun reported that the Sasakawa Peace Foundation—a conservative-leaning organization funded by the Nippon Foundation—released a report on China's nuclear warhead production cycle with this projection.

The Chinese national flag, the Five-star Red Flag. Photo by Reuters and Yonhap News

According to the report, China extracts military-grade plutonium from two graphite reactors located in Gansu and Sichuan provinces and, as of 2024, possesses 2.9 tons of plutonium. This amount is sufficient to produce between 600 and 1,100 nuclear warheads. However, this stockpile is small compared to other nuclear powers, such as Russia (88 tons) and the United States (38.4 tons). The U.S. Department of Defense, in its military power report on China released last year, estimated that China possesses about 600 nuclear warheads and projected that the number could reach 1,000 by 2030.

In addition, China is also strengthening the capability of its so-called "civilian" nuclear facilities. Separate from its graphite reactors, since 2002, China has been operating two heavy-water reactors at the Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant in Zhejiang Province, which are suitable for producing weapons-grade plutonium.

Yu Koizumi, Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, pointed out, "Even at present, China has the capacity to produce enough plutonium for more than 100 nuclear warheads per year," and noted that if civilian plutonium is utilized, China’s annual nuclear warhead production capacity could increase to about 200 warheads. If China produces between 100 and 200 warheads annually over the next 10 years, the total could reach 2,000 by 2035. The United States and Russia each currently possess about 5,000 nuclear warheads, and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which expired in February, limited the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550.

According to the report, since 2015, two new reprocessing plants capable of extracting plutonium have been confirmed to be constructed in the desert region of Gansu Province. In Fujian Province, China continues to develop fast breeder reactors capable of extracting super-high-purity plutonium-239, which is most suitable for nuclear weapons.

Professor Koizumi stated, "China is expanding its nuclear forces depending on its national power and its relationship with the United States," adding, "In the long term, we must consider how to maintain deterrence against China, which will possess both a powerful nuclear arsenal and conventional forces." He also emphasized, "The heavy-water reactors at the Qinshan Power Plant and the fast breeder reactors in Fujian Province are publicly declared as civilian, but diverting the plutonium extracted from these facilities for military use would likely constitute a serious violation of major international agreements."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.