China continues its nuclear expansion, strengthens ties with Russia and has increased military pressure against Taiwan over the past year, according to a new Defense Department report examining actions that are accelerating key areas of conflict with the US.
The report, released Wednesday, also noted that the recent wave of allegations of corruption within China’s powerful Central Military Commission, which oversees the People’s Liberation Army, is hurting Beijing’s military growth and could slow its modernization campaign.
A senior defense official said China has made progress in some of its programs but has backslid in others.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the U.S. assessment, warned that Beijing is working to develop a more diverse and technologically advanced nuclear force. While the expected number of warheads has seen consistent growth, China is expanding its targeting capabilities.
Beijing will be able to go after more and different types of targets, inflict greater damage and have more options for multiple counterattacks, the official said. The US is urging China to be more transparent about its nuclear program, while warning that America will defend its allies and take appropriate steps in response.
According to the report, which provides the annual U.S. assessment of China’s military power and is required by Congress, China had more than 600 operational nuclear warheads as of mid-2024, and the Pentagon expects it will have more than 1,000 by 2030. of China’s current stockpile of nuclear warheads is about 100 higher than last year’s report revealed, but that reflects the change in the estimate, not the pace of China’s nuclear warhead build-up. production.
The Biden administration has worked to maintain a balance with China, building up the US military presence in the Asia-Pacific region to be ready to counter Beijing, while also increasing communications between the two countries diplomatically and military level.
That uptick in talks coincided with a decline in the number of coercive and high-risk interceptions of US aircraft since the end of 2023, compared with the previous two years. However, China continues to conduct what the U.S. military considers “unsafe” flights near U.S. and allied forces in the region.
The Pentagon’s national defense strategy is built around the assessment that China poses the greatest security challenge to the US, and that the threat from Beijing affects how the US military is equipped and organized for the future.
Corruption within the PLA has resulted in the ouster of at least 15 high-ranking officials, causing a major shake-up in China’s defense establishment.
“This wave of corruption is affecting every agency within the PLA and may have damaged Beijing’s confidence,” the report said.
In June, China announced that former Defense Minister Li Shangfu and his predecessor Wei Fenghe had been expelled from the ruling Communist Party and charged with corruption. Another senior official, Miao Hua, was suspended and investigated last month, according to China’s Defense Ministry.
The US report points to a continued increased military presence by China around Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own. It said the Chinese navy has increased its presence in the region and there have been more border crossings into the island’s air defense identification zone and major military exercises in the area.
Just last week, a large deployment of Chinese naval and coast guard ships in the waters around Taiwan caused alarm, when Taiwanese officials said it appeared China was simulating a blockade. Officials have said as many as 90 ships were involved in what Taiwan described as two walls designed to show that the waters belong to China.
Taiwan broke away from communist China in 1949 and rejected Beijing’s demands to accept unification. China says it will do so by force if necessary, and its leaders have said they want to be ready to do so by 2027.
The United States is obligated under domestic law to help defend Taiwan and provide the country with weapons and technology to deter invasion.
The island’s democracy has been the main source of tension between Washington and Beijing for decades and is widely seen as the most likely trigger for a potentially catastrophic war between the US and China.
More broadly, the report concluded that the PLA continued its drive to develop greater military capabilities but was making “uneven progress toward the 2027 modernization milestone.”
One area of expansion, the report said, involves unmanned aerial systems, which officials said are “fast approaching U.S. standards.”
As for Russia, the report says China has supported this Russian war against Ukraine and sold Russia the dual-use items that Moscow’s military industry relies on. Dual-use items can be used for both civilian and military purposes.
Eleanor Watson contributed to this report.
