China will likely amass 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035 if it stays on its current buildup path, Pentagon's 2022 China Military Power report revealed on Tuesday.
"They've got a rapid buildup that is kind of too substantial to keep under wraps...it does raise questions about whether they're kind of shifting away from a strategy that was premised on what they referred to as a lean and effective deterrent," a senior US defense official commented during a news briefing.
The report covers the activities in 2021 and estimates that Beijing has a nuclear stockpile of more than 400 warheads, while also reporting that China conducted 135 ballistic missile tests last year, more than the rest of the world combined.
