Satellite imagery captured between 2022 and 2026 has revealed a significant expansion of Beijing’s nuclear buildup in Sichuan Province, southwest China, reflecting Beijing’s ambitions in an era of intensifying superpower rivalry, The New York Times reported on 15 February.
China’s nuclear expansion
One such nuclear facility site lies near Zitong in Sichuan Province, where engineers have constructed new bunkers and reinforced ramparts. A newly built complex, lined with an array of pipes, indicates the facility is designed to handle highly hazardous materials.
Another valley houses a double-fenced facility known as Pingtong, where experts believe China is producing plutonium cores for nuclear warheads. The main building, marked by a 360-foot-high ventilation stack, has been refurbished in recent years with new vents and heat-dispersion systems. Additional construction is now underway alongside it, the report added.
The nuclear-related sites in these valleys are among several secretive sites in Sichuan Province that have expanded in recent years. Beijing’s nuclear expansion plan further complicates efforts to revive global arms control after the expiration of the last remaining nuclear treaty between the United States and Russia. Washington has previously argued that any future agreement must also include China; however, Beijing has shown little to no interest in joining such arrangements.
Nuclear an integral part of China’s goal in becoming a superpower
The satellite images were analyzed by Renny Babiarz, a geospatial intelligence expert, who shared his findings with The New York Times and said, “The changes we see on the ground at these sites align with China’s broader goals of becoming a global superpower. Nuclear weapons are an integral part of that.”
Comparing China’s various nuclear sites to pieces of a mosaic, Babiarz explained that, viewed together, they reveal a pattern of rapid expansion. “There’s been evolution at all of these sites, but broadly speaking, that change accelerated starting from 2019,” he added.
US-China tensions
Beijing’s expansion of nuclear sites is serving as a growing source of tension between the US and China. Earlier this month, Thomas G. DiNanno, the State Department’s under secretary for arms control and international security, publicly accused China of secretly conducting nuclear explosive tests in violation of a global moratorium. Beijing has dismissed the claim, calling it “untrue”.
China’s nuclear warheads
By the end of 2024, China had over 600 nuclear warheads and is reportedly on track to take the number to 1,000 by 2030, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual estimate. While Beijing’s stockpile in numbers is much smaller compared to Moscow and Washington, its growth is still troublesome, Matthew Sharp, a former State Department official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Nuclear Security Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said.
The report states that nuclear sites in Sichuan Province were built six decades ago, as part of Mao Zedong’s Third Fronta project aimed to protect China’s nuclear weapons production labs and plants from strikes by the US or the Soviet Union. However, later, when China’s tensions with the US and Moscow subsided in the 1980s, many of the ‘Third Front’ nuclear sites were either closed or shrank, following which the scientists often moved to a new weapons lab in the nearby city of Mianyang.
Estimated global nuclear warhead inventories
According to an Arms Control Association report, the total number of nuclear warheads was reported at over 12,400, with nearly 90% of them belonging to Russia and the US. Here’s a list of the countries that own nuclear warheads:
