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Key Findings

Domestic drivers are likely to accelerate China's nuclear modernization over the coming decade:

1. Increased bureaucratic influence over nuclear force planning and policymaking
2. Elevation of nuclear constituencies within the PLA
3. Lack of organizational firewalls to prevent advances in conventional capability from influencing nuclear force structure.

Since its first nuclear test in October 1964, China has maintained a modest strategic force designed to achieve limited deterrence goals. It has maintained a no-first-use policy and the ability to impose some risk of a second strike to deter attack. China's restrained posture has made it an outlier in the nuclear world. In recent years, however, new trends have turned China's outlier status on its head: While the United States and Russia have reduced their nuclear inventories, China has increased its strategic missiles and warheads and dramatically improved the quality of its force (Figure 1). China appears to be moving from a modest strategy of minimum deterrence toward a more robust strategy of assured retaliation, although China itself has not used either label (and talks instead about its requirement for a "lean and effective" nuclear deterrent). Although China is unlikely to change formal policy, it is developing capabilities that may ultimately allow it to engage in limited nuclear warfighting.