CCP’s missile silo expansion triggers regional concerns

FORUM Staff

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) menacing military buildup, epitomized by a rapid and opaque expansion of missile silos, has sparked concern across the Indo-Pacific about Beijing’s intentions for its growing arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Those worries are heightened by CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s ongoing purge of military leaders and rocket scientists, and by questions over the quality and control of the party-state’s nuclear and ballistic missile assets.

“Within the past five years, China has significantly expanded its ongoing nuclear modernization program by fielding more types and greater numbers of nuclear weapons than ever before,” researchers with the Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) Nuclear Information Project reported recently.

That includes continued development of “three new missile silo fields for solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs),” and the expanded construction of silos for liquid-fuel DF-5 ICBMs. The researchers estimate the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) stockpile at 500 nuclear warheads for delivery by bombers, and land- and sea-based ballistic missiles.

“In all, China’s nuclear expansion is among the largest and most rapid modernization campaigns of the nine nuclear-armed states,” according to the January 2024 report published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In particular, “the construction of hundreds of silos for solid-fuel missiles … has triggered significant debate about China’s longstanding no-first-use policy.”

Turmoil in the Chinese military establishment is compounding the uncertainty. In January, the head of the Chinese agency that spearheads development, testing and production of missiles and launch vehicles was dismissed without explanation. Wang Xiaojun, who led the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, was the latest of more than a dozen senior military and defense industry officials purged by the CCP in the past six months, Bloomberg News reported.

Corruption allegations have plagued the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), particularly its secretive Rocket Force, which oversees the regime’s tactical and nuclear missiles. Five of the nine generals removed from their posts in late 2023 were past or current commanders in the Rocket Force, the Reuters news agency reported, while three executives at state-controlled companies that produce missile systems also were dismissed by the CCP’s top political advisory body.

The disarray is eroding the PLA’s ability to wage war, with U.S. intelligence reports indicating that vast silo fields in western China have faulty lids that render missile launches ineffective, while other missiles are filled with water instead of fuel, according to Bloomberg News.

This comes as the region confronts “the risk of strategic competition escalating into conflict,” potentially over land and maritime territorial disputes, including flashpoints such as the Malacca and Taiwan straits, according to Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Analysts say Beijing may be bolstering its nuclear and missile capabilities to deter the U.S. and like-minded nations from intervening in the event of the CCP invading self-governed Taiwan, which it claims as its territory and threatens to annex.

“Countries of the Indo-Pacific face China’s rapid military buildup without the transparency and reassurance that the region looks for from great powers,” Wong said in her keynote address to the Indian Ocean Conference in Perth in February 2024.

The U.S. Defense Department reported in October 2023 that the PRC likely will have more than 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by 2030, and that Beijing may be exploring development of conventionally armed intercontinental range missile systems that would allow the PRC to threaten conventional strikes against targets in the continental United States.

That nuclear posture is inconsistent with Beijing’s purported commitment to a “minimum deterrence” strategy, U.S. officials said.

The PRC’s nuclear warhead inventory now trails only those of Russia and the U.S., which have stockpiles of about 4,500 and 3,700 warheads respectively, according to the FAS.

After five years of rejecting U.S. requests to discuss strategic risk reduction, Beijing finally resumed nuclear arms talks with Washington in late 2023, although it has not agreed to formal arms control negotiations.

“The expectation is that it could lead to Beijing appreciating the usefulness of dialogue and transparency, and hopefully leading to a pause in its nuclear expansion, at least in relative terms,” Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, director of the Centre for Security, Strategy & Technology at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, wrote for The Diplomat magazine in January 2024. “If not halted, China’s nuclear expansion could lead to a spiraling arms race in terms of expanding nuclear arsenals.”