Chinese nuclear weapons, 2026

The modernization of China’s nuclear arsenal has both accelerated and expanded in recent years. In this issue of the Nuclear Notebook, we estimate that China now possesses approximately 620 nuclear warheads, with more in production to arm future delivery systems. China is believed to have the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal among the nine nuclear-armed states; it is the only nuclear-armed Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that is significantly increasing its nuclear arsenal, although the other four are increasing too. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: director Hans M. Kristensen, associate director Matt Korda, and senior research associates Eliana Johns and Mackenzie Knight-Boyle. To see all previous Nuclear Notebook columns in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists dating back to 1987, go to https://thebulletin.org/nuclear-notebook/.