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25-12-2025
BEIJING: China on Tuesday urged the United States to fulfil its nuclear disarmament responsibilities after a draft Pentagon report said China was likely to have loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles in sites near the Mongolian border and showed no desire for arms control talks.
“As a super nuclear power with the largest nuclear arsenal, the most urgent task for the US is to earnestly fulfil the special and priority responsibility for nuclear disarmament,” Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a regular press conference in Beijing.
The US should “substantially reduce its nuclear arsenal to create conditions for other nuclear-weapon states to join the nuclear disarmament process,” Lin added.
In a draft report seen by media, the Pentagon said China had probably installed more than 100 solid-fueled DF-31 ICBMs in the three silo fields close to Mongolia. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based non-profit, has said China is expanding and modernizing its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power.
“We continue to see no appetite from Beijing for pursuing such measures or more comprehensive arms control discussions,” the report said.
US President Donald Trump signaled last month that he might be working on a plan to denuclearize with China and Russia.
The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said he was not aware of the Pentagon report, but said “similar hypes” had been seen from the US before.
“It aims to find excuses for accelerating its own nuclear forces’ modernization and actions disrupting global strategic stability,” Lin added.
Beijing had embarked on a rapid and sustained increase in the size and capability of its nuclear forces, US analysts said.
China’s nuclear warhead stockpile was still in the low 600s in 2024, which reflected “a slower rate of production when compared to previous years,” according to the Pentagon report but China was on track to have more than 1,000 warheads by 2030, it added.
The US is estimated to hold around 5,177 nuclear warheads.
“China firmly adheres to a no-first-use nuclear weapons policy and upholds a nuclear strategy of self-defence,” Lin said.
China “does not engage in nuclear arms races with any country.”
“Russia’s second. China’s a distant third, but they’ll catch us within four or five years,” Trump said. “We’re maybe working on a plan to denuclearize, the three of us. We’ll see if that works.”
China is likely to have loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across its latest three silo fields and has no desire for arms control talks, according to a draft Pentagon report which highlighted Beijing’s growing military ambitions.
China is expanding and modernizing its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based non-profit. Beijing has described reports of a military buildup as efforts to “smear and defame China and deliberately mislead the international community.”
Last month, US President Donald Trump said that he may be working on a plan to denuclearize with China and Russia but the draft Pentagon report, which was seen by media, said Beijing did not appear to be interested.
“We continue to see no appetite from Beijing for pursuing such measures or more comprehensive arms control discussions,” the report said.
In particular, the report said that China had likely put in more than 100 solid-fueled DF-31 ICBMs in silo fields close to China’s border with Mongolia, the latest in a series of silo sites. (Int’l News Desk)
