Beijing is continuing to build up its nuclear arsenal and inventory of missiles capable of striking U.S. bases in Japan, the Pentagon has said, despite corruption probes at the upper echelons of the Chinese military.
The U.S. Defense Department said Wednesday in an annual congressionally mandated report on Chinese military power that Beijing possessed more than 600 operational nuclear warheads as of mid-2024, with estimates that it will probably have over 1,000 warheads by 2030, a force that would continue to grow through at least 2035.
The report also said that China now has 1,300 medium-range ballistic missiles in its arsenal, 300 more than last year’s estimate. With a range of 1,000 to 1,300 kilometers, the weapons are easily able to hit key U.S. and Japanese military outposts in Okinawa Prefecture.
But the ongoing anti-corruption investigations, which have even ensnared former defense chief Li Shangfu, are believed to have thrown a wrench into progress toward Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s more immediate goals, namely a push to accelerate the integrated development of a “mechanized, informatized and intelligentized” military by 2027.
U.S. officials, including the head of the CIA and the military’s Indo-Pacific Command, have said that, as part of this push, Xi has ordered his military to be ready to invade democratic Taiwan — which China claims as its own — by 2027.
Wednesday’s report said that between July and December 2023, at least 15 high-ranking Chinese military officers and defense industry executives were removed from their posts. Several of the officials investigated or removed had overseen equipment development projects related to modernizing the Chinese military’s ground-based nuclear and conventional missiles.
"In 2023, the PLA experienced a new wave of corruption-related investigations and removals of senior leaders which may have disrupted its progress toward stated 2027 modernization goals," the report said, using an abbreviation for China’s People's Liberation Army.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner said Wednesday that the removal of the 15 senior officials was likely the "tip of the iceberg."
"I don't think this is just ... some guys are taking some money and putting it in their pocket, or maybe their banquets, they're buying too expensive whiskey," Ratner said during a think tank event after the report’s release.
China's leadership would not be taking such “dramatic” anti-corruption measures unless they felt the military’s operational effectiveness was being eroded, he added.
A senior Pentagon official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity echoed this view, saying that once a case involving a senior official or sector is uncovered, “there's sort of a bit of a spiraling kind of effect where it inevitably seems to draw in additional officials who are connected to that one official who is originally at the center of the investigation.”
As for the 2027 goals, the official said that “while corruption may slow them down, I think they've identified it as something that really poses great risks to the political reliability and ultimately the operational capability of the PLA. So I would certainly expect them to continue to pursue the anti-corruption campaign.”
The campaign has indeed appeared to continue into this year, with Beijing saying last month that Adm. Miao Hua, a member of the Central Military Commission, China’s highest-level military command body, was under investigation for "serious violations of discipline" — a euphemism for graft.
But Beijing has said media reports that current Defense Minister Dong Jun, who ranks below Miao, had been sidelined by a corruption investigation were "a sheer fabrication."
As for China’s nuclear buildup, the senior Pentagon official said that U.S. concerns were not just about the numbers, but also the “diversity and sophistication” of the force.
“When you look at what they're trying to build here, it's a diversified nuclear force that would be comprised of systems ranging from low-yield, precision-strike missiles, all the way up to ICBMs with different options at basically every rung on the escalation ladder, which is a lot different than what they've relied on traditionally,” the official said, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles.
For Japan, the rising numbers of Chinese weapons capable of striking its far-flung southwestern islands have long been a concern.
“Those missiles have a range that really only makes sense for hitting bases/targets in Japan,” Thomas Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank and a retired U.S. Navy submarine warfare officer, wrote on social media platform X.
Experts say these types of weapons could be used in the initial stages of a U.S.-China war over Taiwan.
Japan, which does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan but retains robust business and cultural ties with Taipei, has warned that a conflict over the democratic island could also represent a serious crisis for the country, and would likely prompt Tokyo’s involvement.
China has raised eyebrows in Japan over what the Pentagon report called “amplified diplomatic, political and military pressure against Taiwan,” including highly publicized major military exercises near the island last year and this year.
Still, the report said that while the Chinese military remains focused on developing the ability “to dissuade, deter, or if ordered defeat third-party intervention” in the region, “it has not yet demonstrated the type and sophistication of certain capabilities it would need in a major regional contingency.”
“We don't think that conflict is imminent or inevitable,” the senior U.S. defense official said. “We think that we have deterrence today that's real and strong. We're doing a lot to try to keep it that way.”
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