China and weapons of mass destruction

Common card · No. 212071

The People's Republic of China has possessed nuclear weapons since 1964. It was the last to develop them of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). China acceded to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1984, acceded to the NPT in 1992, and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1997. China tested its first nuclear bomb in 1964 and its first full-scale thermonuclear bomb in 1967. It carried out 45 nuclear tests before signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. China is estimated to possess a stockpile of approximately 620 nuclear warheads as of 2026, making it the third-largest in the world. It is the only NPT nuclear-weapon state significantly expanding its arsenal and is projected to reach 1,000 warheads by 2030 and up to 1,500 by 2035. Compared to the arsenals of the United States and Russia, a much smaller proportion of China's warheads are believed to be deployed on their delivery systems, with the remainder...

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