Comment: China and Nuclear Weapons. (1997, 20 Marks)
China tested its first device at Lop Nur on 16 October 1964 and declared the same day that it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances. For half a century it kept a small arsenal under a doctrine of assured retaliation. Since about 2020 it has run the fastest build-up of any nuclear power, testing whether that restraint still holds.
The making of a nuclear China
- Motive. American nuclear threats during the Korean War and the Taiwan Strait crises of 1954–55 and 1958, then the Sino-Soviet split and the withdrawal of Soviet help in 1959–60, convinced Mao Zedong that China had to build the bomb alone. Publicly he called it a “paper tiger”.
- Speed. China tested a thermonuclear device in June 1967, less than three years after its first test.
- Doctrine. M. Taylor Fravel and Evan S. Medeiros (International Security, 2010) describe China’s long search for assured retaliation: a small, survivable force able to inflict unacceptable damage, kept with warheads stored apart from missiles under tight central control.
- Joining the regime. Long outside every regime, it acceded to the NPT in 1992, conducted its last test on 29 July 1996 and signed the CTBT that year, but has never ratified it.
China as proliferator
China helped Pakistan’s programme from the late 1970s, reportedly including a tested weapon design, and supplied the Chashma reactors and missile technology. This made the China–Pakistan axis central to India’s nuclear problem.
The current expansion
- Numbers. About 620 warheads in January 2026 (SIPRI), roughly double the 2020 figure. The Pentagon’s December 2025 report saw production slow, with the stockpile in the low 600s through 2024, but still projects over 1,000 by 2030.
- Forces. More than 100 DF-31-class missiles likely loaded in three new silo fields, Jin-class submarines carrying the JL-3, an air-launched missile, and the whole triad on parade in Beijing in September 2025. An ICBM test into the Pacific (September 2024) was the first since 1980.
- Posture. Early-warning satellites support an early-warning counterstrike posture, close to launch-on-warning.
How to read it
- Continuity view. China’s arms-control white paper of 27 November 2025 restates no first use “at any time and under any circumstances” and proposes a mutual NFU pledge among the five recognised powers. A bigger, more mobile force can simply be survivability against American missile defence and precision strike.
- Structural realism. For Kenneth N. Waltz, a rising power builds capability to match its position; the expansion tracks China’s shift to peer competitor of the United States.
- Sceptical view. Launch-on-warning risks a false-alarm launch, and the growth exceeds minimum needs. China refuses trilateral arms control, citing its far smaller arsenal, while New START expired on 5 February 2026 with no successor. The “strategic stability” framework from Donald Trump’s May 2026 Beijing visit is a start, not a treaty; arms control built for two powers now faces three.
The Indian dimension
China’s 1964 test set India on the path to Pokhran. China is still the main reason India’s credible minimum deterrence needs long range, MIRVs and a sea leg. Yet China does not accept India as a nuclear-weapon state and has blocked India’s NSG membership since 2016. Its own record is still India’s best precedent: NFU stays credible against a far larger rival when the force behind it can survive.
Conclusion
China’s nuclear story is a shift from minimalism to sufficiency against a superpower. Its doctrine is unchanged but its capability is not, and a declared NFU backed by a near-peer arsenal reassures less than it once did. For India, that widens the gap that “minimum” must cover and makes the sea-based second strike urgent.