Every year the Pentagon prepares a detailed special report on China’s rapidly growing military and sends it to the US Congress, which then scrutinizes it thoroughly. The Pentagon keeps a very close eye on China’s military activities and tracks its progress on various parameters on an annual basis.
This year’s report has made shocking revelations about China’s nuclear weapons stockpile. In an era where the world’s focus is on denuclearization and disarmament, Beijing has been found to be the most actively adding weapons to its stockpile. At least 100 nuclear weapons have been added to its arsenal in 2024 alone.
The Pentagon report also highlights that China now wants to accelerate the pace of making more nuclear weapons and wants to cross the mark of 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030. It is estimated that China currently has about 600 nuclear weapons in its inventory.
“China has the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal and has advanced the development of conventional and nuclear-armed hypersonic missile technologies,” the report said. It also said that China will continue to increase its nuclear arsenal until at least 2035.
Privacy & Cheating Policy
China keeps everything related to its army and defense secret. It never reveals any information about its army, air force, or navy and the weapons under their control. Although Beijing formally announces the defense budget every year, the Pentagon believes this is not the true figure.
In 2024, Beijing announced an annual defense outlay of $224 billion, but the Pentagon report shows that China has spent at least 40 percent more than the officially declared amount. This brings the defense budget to between $350 billion and $450 billion, or about half the US defense budget, which is more than $880 billion.
The Pentagon’s research also highlights Beijing’s broader focus on further modernizing its military by developing a range of new missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBMs — both conventional and nuclear — “that could hit Alaska, Hawaii and the continental United States.” States can attack America”.
The Chinese Navy is already the largest in the world with a declared fleet size of over 370 ships and submarines. This is significantly larger than the size of the US Navy’s fleet, which is 290 ships and submarines.
China’s air force is also a formidable force as it has more than 1,200 fighter aircraft that are fourth-generation military aircraft – on par with some of the most sophisticated combat aircraft built by the United States and its allies in Europe. The total strength of China’s air force is close to 2,000 aircraft, which is very large.
US-China defense relations
Although there is an infrastructure for defense dialogue between the two countries, and communication occurs at the junior level, China has rejected any high-level dialogue or cooperation with the US.
When US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approached Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun for a meeting on the sidelines of a defense summit in Laos last month, he rejected it. Secretary Austin called it “unfortunate” and said such an attitude was “a blow to the entire region.”
Incoming US President Donald Trump has appointed two China hawks to his administration – Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Mike Walz as US National Security Advisor.
The Chinese government has imposed sanctions on Marco Rubio, and banned him from re-entering the country in 2020 – something Beijing will need to reconsider when he takes over as secretary of state.
Just weeks before the Trump administration took office, NSA-designate Mike Waltz had already urged President-elect Trump to “immediately end the conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East to counter the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party.”
