China is accelerating its development of strategic nuclear warheads in an effort to amass 700 by 2027 and 1,000 by 2030, more than doubling last year’s estimate, according to the US Defense Department’s 2021 China military power report. Viewed alongside recent revelations about the construction of at least 250 new missile silos in northwestern China, the annual report highlights a concerning nuclear build-up.

Last year, the Pentagon had estimated Beijing had a total nuclear warhead stockpile in the low 200s and projected it would at least double over the next decade. China is “investing in, and expanding, the number of its land-, sea-, and airbased nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces,” the report had noted, covering developments through 2020.

Responding to the report’s release, State Department spokesperson Ned Price had reiterated that the Biden administration has sought to engage China on arms control. “We think all responsible countries that have [nuclear] weapons should engage in an arms control dialogue,” he told the Press last November. “We remain ready and willing to do that, and we’ve made that known to (Chinese) authorities.”

President Joe Biden had also raised the possibility of opening a strategic stability dialogue with China, to include nuclear issues, during a virtual summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping last November 15. “The two leaders agreed that we would look to begin to carry forward discussions on strategic stability,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told a virtual event at the Brookings Institution the following day.

Such a dialogue will need “to be guided by the leaders and led by senior empowered teams on both sides that cut across security, technology, and diplomacy,” he had added. “It is now incumbent on us to think about the most productive way to carry it forward from here.”

Beijing repeatedly rejected the Trump administration’s demands to join trilateral arms control talks with Russia and also rebuffed previous calls by the Biden administration to open a bilateral strategic stability dialogue. The Biden-Xi virtual summit seemed to suggest that Beijing now is at least willing to consider the possibility of dialogue. But China had strongly denounced the Pentagon report.

“The Defense Department report, just like similar reports in the past, disregards facts and is filled with bias,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin had reacted. He emphasized that China “actively advocates the ultimate complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.”

China has an estimated 350 nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The United States and Russia have at least 10 times more, with estimated stockpiles of 3,800 and 4,500 warheads, respectively. The world lives under a shadow.