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Nuclear Weapons

China began developing nuclear weapons in the late 1950s with substantial Soviet assistance. Before 1960 direct Soviet military assistance had included the provision of advisors and a vast variety of equipment. Of the assistance provided, most significant to China's future strategic nuclear capability were an experimental nuclear reactor, facilities for processing uranium, a cyclotron, and some equipment for a gaseous diffusions plant.

When Sino-Soviet relations cooled in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union withheld plans and data for an atomic bomb, abrogated the agreement on transferring defense technology, and began the withdrawal of Soviet advisers in 1960. Despite the termination of Soviet assistance, China committed itself to continue nuclear weapons development to break "the superpowers' monopoly on nuclear weapons," to ensure Chinese security against the Soviet and United States threats, and to increase Chinese prestige and power internationally.

When China decided in 1955 to develop atomic bombs it faced a number of technological choices as to the most appropriate route to follow. At that time China could only work on one path, and had to choose between producing Pu239 from a reactor, or developing the method of producing U235 through isotope separation. The uranium path offered two alternatives, either system, either chemical separation or physical separation. Chemical separation of Pu235 from the mixed system of U235 and U238 would have been easier than physical separation, but the separation of plutonium and uranium was difficult due to the high radioactivity of the Pu-U system, and the severe toxicity of plutonium. Therefore, the chosen path was the physical separation of U235 and U238 isotopes. The implosion method of detonating an atomic bomb was considered more technically advanced, though there were questions as to whether China was capable of producing a uranium bomb detonated by the implosion method.

China made remarkable progress in the 1960s in developing nuclear weapons. In a thirty-two-month period, China successfully exploded its first atomic bomb (October 16, 1964), launched its first nuclear missile (October 25, 1966), and detonated its first hydrogen bomb (June 14, 1967.

Subsequent nuclear tests (CHIC 12, CHIC 13) were suggestive of a new phase of the PRC test programs. Both were low yield weapons. It appeared possible that CHIC 13 was delivered by an F-9 fighter aircraft and may have been a proof test of a weapon.

In addition to the development of a sea-based nuclear force, China began considering the development of tactical nuclear weapons. PLA exercises featured the simulated use of tactical nuclear weapons in offensive and defensive situations beginning in 1982. Reports of Chinese possession of tactical nuclear weapons remained unconfirmed in 1987. In 1988 Chinese specialists tested a 1-5 KT nuclear device with an enhanced radiation yield, advancing the country's development of a very low yield neutron weapon and laying the foundation for the creation of nuclear artillery.

There is considerable uncertainly in published estimates of the size of the Chinese nuclear weapons stockpile. In the late 1980s it was generally held that China was the world's third-largest nuclear power, possessing a small but credible nuclear deterrent force of 225 to 300 nuclear weapons. Other estimates of the country's production capacities suggested that by the end of 1970 China had fabricated around 200 nuclear weapons, a number which could have increased to 875 by 1980. Assuming an average annual production of 75 nuclear weapons during the 1980s, some estimates even suggested that by the mid-1990s the Chinese nuclear industry had produced around 2,000 nuclear weapons for ballistic missiles, bombers, artillery projectiles and landmines.

In 2005 and 2006, the Department of Defense's annual report on China's military forces included a detailed table of China's ballistic missiles. The table suggested that China had 250-296 launchers with 793-916 missiles of seven types. Of these, approximately 105 are thought to be armed with nuclear warheads:
 

The DOD table followed a fact sheet published by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in April 2004, which stated: "Among the nuclear-weapon states, China...possesses the smallest nuclear arsenal." Since Britain has declared that it has less than 200 operationally available warheads, and the United States, Russia, and France have more, the Chinese statement could be interpreted to mean that China’s nuclear arsenal is smaller than Britain’s. Not surprisingly the devil is in the details; does the word “arsenal” refer to the entire stockpile or just the portion of it that is operationally deployed?

Based on these, and numerous other declassified and unclassified documents, FAS and NRDC in 2006 estimated the composition of the Chinese nuclear arsenal as follows:

China's nuclear forces, in combination with the PLA's conventional forces, serve to deter both nuclear and conventional attack. Chinese leaders repeatedly have pledged never to be the first to use nuclear weapons, and they have accompanied the no-first -use pledge with a promise of certain nuclear counterattack if nuclear weapons are used against China. China envisioned retaliation against strategic and tactical attacks and would probably strike countervalue rather than counterforce targets. The combination of China's few nuclear weapons and technological factors such as range, accuracy, and response time might further limit the effectiveness of nuclear strikes against counterforce targets. China is seeking to increase the credibility of its nuclear retaliatory capability by dispersing and concealing its nuclear forces in difficult terrain, improving their mobility, and hardening its missile silos.

Nuclear Weapons Test List

Related Resources

• Chinese Nuclear Forces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning, Federation of American Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council, November 2006.
• Nuclear Weapons Systems in China, Defense Intelligence Agency, 24 April 1984, courtesy of Hans M. Kristensen (heavily redacted). See also alternate version of the same document from the National Security Archive. (And reconstructed version compiled from both sources.)
• Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2006, Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2006.
• Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2003, Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 2003

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