China sees Russia partnership as crucial to its great-power ambitions and is developing ability to ‘win wars’: Pentagon

Continuing a string of reports about the rapid development of China’s nuclear arsenal, the report estimated that the country’s military possessed more than 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May this year, “on track to exceed previous projections”.

“The PRC will probably have over 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, much of which will be deployed at higher readiness levels and will continue growing its force to 2035 in line with its goal of ensuring PLA modernisation is ‘basically complete’ that year,” it said.

China’s strategy “entails deliberate and determined efforts to amass, improve and harness the internal and external elements of national power that will place the PRC in a ‘leading position’ in an enduring competition between systems”, it said.

‘Highly complementary’: China, Russia lay out plans for regional integration

The report stopped short of accusing Beijing of arming Russia to wage war against Ukraine, instead describing it as taking “a discreet, flexible and cautious approach to providing material support to Russia”.

This strategy, it said, allowed the country “to maintain plausible deniability, control material transfers, create off-ramps to renege on agreements and maximise the PRC’s options to aid Russia”.

With respect to direct military conflicts with the US, the report said China “may be exploring development of conventionally-armed intercontinental range missile systems”.

“If developed and fielded, such capabilities would allow the PRC to threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska,” it said.

Diplomatic impunity: envoy uses rough language to describe US-China relations

The report also said the PLA sought to “restrict the United States from having a presence in the East and South China Sea regions … and increasingly to hold at risk US access in the broader Indo-Pacific region”.

The Pentagon suggested Beijing may have the capability to invade Taiwan by 2027, a time frame that several US military officials have cited for such a scenario with varying degrees of certainty over whether an attempted takeover of the self-ruled island would occur.

The US, like other countries, does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but is opposed to any unilateral change to the cross-strait status quo by force.

“Xi reaffirmed his commitment to the PLA’s 2027 milestone for modernisation to accelerate the integrated development of mechanisation, informatisation, and intelligentisation of the PRC’s armed forces,” it said.