By: Lipun Kumar Sinbad

The last year or so has witnessed very rapid growth in Chinese nuclear capabilities that have increased over time to a very threatening level, not only to international security but also to regional stability. Throughout its history, China has followed a very successful policy of minimal deterrence and has actually maintained a relatively small arsenal of nuclear weapons, mainly intended to deter potential aggressors. Lately, China’s development of nuclear strategy has been increasingly indicative of a divergence from its earlier posture of prudence. The present phase of growth in the nuclear program is both quantitatively and qualitatively by far the largest. This has raised great concern from the global community on top of consternation about the potential to cause a mass-scale arms race, in turn sounding a clarion call for wider consequences on the global security architecture.

Dynamic development of China’s nuclear policy has raised concerns not only in Washington and Moscow but also among other regional states, who are increasingly apprehensive regarding the strategic implications of cohabiting with a rapidly rising nuclear power. Of course, the acceptability of this newly assertive strategy regarding nuclear armament directly challenges the prevailing world order, which throughout time has constantly secured the absence of nuclear hostilities through a frail balance of power. Of course, it is apt to ramify, through the strategic logics of many nations, onto deep and wide implications that it may set forth, complicating even further the effort for the sustenance of international peace and security.

Within this context, one requires an understanding of the whole picture of China’s nuclear expansion and the much wider geopolitics in which it fits. This paper studies the implications of growing Chinese nuclear capabilities systemically in relation to their impacts on global security and the stability of neighboring countries. This paper is meant to thoroughly understand how the significant rise in threats related to China’s nuclear ambitions is being looked into from the standpoint of real cases, valid reasons, and evidence acquired through quantification.

China’s Nuclear Expansion: A Departure from Minimal Deterrence

While maintaining a “no first use” policy and a relatively small nuclear arsenal designed for minimum deterrence, China has made its strategic doctrine revolve around the judgment that a few nuclear weapons will be sufficient to discourage potential adversaries from attacking China. However, the latest developments suggest drastic changes in China’s thinking. Now, for instance, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that China’s nuclear warheads likely increased from around 320 in 2020 to its current count of 410 in 2023. There are other estimates that put the number above 1,000 by 2030. This build-up is, for the most part, driven by the construction of new missile silos, development of new advanced delivery systems such as hypersonic glide vehicles, and deployment of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles on its intercontinental ballistic missiles, to name a few measures. It indicates that China is no longer pursuing the concept of minimum deterrence with this massive, modernized nuclear arsenal build-up. This can be attributed to a variety of elements: parity with the United States and Russia, trying to deter regional adversaries, and the intention to put up their global superpowers.

Global Security Implications: The Risk of Nuclear Escalation

 It represents an enormous, complex threat to international security, and this is a global stability issue with wide-reaching concerns. The increase in nuclear escalation that is relative to a country such as China, as it improves its capabilities with nuclear weapons and risk from the onset of some conflicts on several dimensions, will just expand on the numbers in nuclear weapons overall but also nuance their governance and regulation.

It is in reality a most disturbing development because it multiplies the perils of miscalculation. Under these tense and instable circumstances, an expanded and improved nuclear stockpile might easily lead to errors of perception or misjudgment of the purposes involved. It will be all too easy for an adversary to misconstrue routine military moves as presaging a surprise pre-emptive nuclear attack, to make appropriate pre-emptive or countermoves, and much too quickly all-out nuclear war will be in town. That means, in itself, potential conflict that is quite blunt with the considerations of hotspots: take China, the South China Sea, and the Taiwan Strait, where even the smallest incident assumes explosive proportions.

It is under this scenario of conflict that a widespread use of nuclear weapons, an event of little probability under the prevailing doctrine of mutual assured destruction, suddenly becomes quite a realistic threat as Chinese nuclear capabilities continue to grow. That enlarged arsenal could make China much more aggressive, convinced that it could dominate—or win—a nuclear exchange. This could create a threshold of use of nuclear weapons, such as when China views limited nuclear use as a usable means to achieve its strategic objectives, especially where the performance of its conventional military forces is up to the mark or where it seeks a third-party intervention in regional conflicts.

The Impact on the Global Strategic Balance

Such growth of the Chinese nuclear arsenal entails important consequences for global strategic stability. Historically, the United States and Russia dominated the international nuclear architecture, their share amounting to over 90 percent of worldwide nuclear warheads. However, China’s rapid furtherance of its nuclear capabilities is hardening this duopoly; at worst, it brings in a new era of dynamic nuclear competition.

This course of events is likely to undermine efforts in arms control on a global level with the New START treaty, which limits the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and their delivery systems by both the United States and Russia. The controversy, of course, is whether to include China in further arms control negotiations, and the increasingly mobilizing Chinese nuclear arsenal is against going forward on any new agreements on nuclear dangers in a multilateral framework.

However, continued enhancement of China’s nuclear capability may inspire another arms race in the region. Regional nuclear powers, together with other developing countries, will find a need to increase their arsenals in response to enhanced Chinese power. This, in turn, will spark off another further destabilizing arms race in the region and will increase the risk of nuclear war. The implementation of the arrival of the hypersonic missile force, it specifically speaks to the concept of arms race instability. They are faster than Mach 5 and have very unpredictable trajectories that deny current missile defense systems. If hypersonic missile forces proliferate, two rival nuclear powers are going to feel that they must do first strikes against each other on the outbreak of war, thus threatening to intensify the incidence of nuclear escalation.

Regional Impacts: Security Dilemmas for Neighboring Countries

The implications of such a dramatic rise in China’s nuclear warheads number in the Asia-Pacific nations. China’s growing military prowess, coupled with increasingly belligerent behavior in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and at borders with India, escalates concerns over security for states in this region.

(i)  Japan: Reassessing Security Posture

A major ally of the United States in Asia-Pacific, Japan, too, has raised serious concerns about the growth of China’s nuclear arsenal. The protective measure for the former was also the U.S. nuclear umbrella, but with growing Chinese assertiveness, a significant emphasis was put on relooking at Japan’s security posture. A growing discourse within Japan also discusses not only hardening Japanese missile defenses but also moving toward a firmer deterrence policy that poses consideration, among others, for the development of particularly pre-emptive strike capabilities.

Even more significant is the intermediate-range ballistic missile, the DF-26, already fielded and which targets sites within Asia-Pacific-region, or more specifically, United States military installations in Japan. Further, the Chinese nuclear-armed submarine that will be based in the Pacific could equally pose a threat to Japanese security.

(ii) India: Heightened Security Dilemmas

India shares an unenviable strategic frontier with a nuclear-armed state: China. Its growing stockpile puts an increasing premium on the Indian security apparatus. China has been historically at loggerheads with India over border demarcation, as can be seen in its confrontations in Doklam and in the Galwan Valley. China’s enhanced nuclear powers, in spite of commitment to credible minimum deterrence, might make India adopt a different nuclear posture.

India has already replied to Chinese nuclear build-up by augmenting its own strategic capability, including the long-range Agni-V ICBM, with an intended reach across the whole of China’s expanse. Besides, India is investing in nuclear submarines, for example, INS Arihant, and building up a second-strike capability. But the asymmetry in the nuclear capabilities between the emerging giant China and powerful India may always pose a problem, pushing India into continually enlarging its arsenal, which could finally result in an arms race in the region.

(iii) South Korea and Taiwan: Growing Vulnerabilities

Growing nuclear capability on behalf of China increases vulnerability either for the United States, as in the case of South Korea, or other states within striking distance, such as Japan, to China. However, the presence of Chinese missile capability, nuclear-armed, and within striking distance of South Korea, is significant because such a step averted the extended deterrence of the U.S.

Taiwan is the most vulnerable, with wide-ranging existential threats from China. An increasing disparity in both conventional and nuclear military power with respect to China could induce Beijing to take stronger actions, even through force, to achieve its aim of reunification. Added to this further complication of strategic calculations for Taipei is the ambiguity surrounding the commitment of the United States, particularly in defending Taiwan in the event of an attack by China.

The West’s Reaction: Containment and Diplomacy

(i) US Strategic Rebalancing and Modern

In this light, it has modernized its nuclear forces as a result of the expansion by the People’s Republic to support allies in the Asia-Pacific region. Development investments which the United States had done in credible, flexible, and advanced nuclear deliverance systems to sustain its strategic posture. This includes the development of the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent and Long-Range Stand-Off missile.

Accompanying this drive for modernization in both military terms and theoretical policy understanding has been a drive for enhancing alliances with Japan, South Korea, and Australia, as well as bolstering security partnerships with India and other regional entities. This manifests itself mostly in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or “Quad”) putatively composed of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, designed in part as a hedge against China’s growing regional dominance.

(ii) Diplomacy in Weapons Control and Confidence Building

 The West has sought to grapple with the rise of China’s nuclear power through arms control and confidence-building, not very successfully. China has been loath to enter any such negotiations—being a minor power in terms of numbers in its nuclear arsenal when compared with the U.S. and Russia. This has, in recent years, been associated with demands for Chinese participation in future arms control agreements, including a follow-on to New START. To achieve this, the confidence-building measures include transparency measures and crisis communication mechanisms that could also help reduce risks of miscalculation and unintended escalation.

Surfing the New Perilous Age

The evolution of such nuclear potentials has altered the strategic balance, intensified the possibility of nuclear escalation, and fueled the security dilemma across the neighboring countries. It being the case, as China proceeds progressively in its modernization drive and expands the domains in the military services that use nuclear potentials, the international society has to rationally adapt to this perilous new phase. The ways may embrace direct and indirect containment, diplomatic efforts, and arm-control attempts. The potential consequences are vast, and the dangers of misperception or unintended escalation are real. The new challenges that have emerged because of China’s nuclear status will need a concerted global effort not to repeat the same arms race and ensure that the deadliest weapons on Earth will never be used in any war. Minds will be further strengthened since there is no backwards way for dealing with the issue of international security and stability.