China is expected to expand and modernise its nuclear arsenal to narrow the gap with the US and Russia following Beijing’s fresh pledge to strengthen its “strategic deterrence” to safeguard the global balance, according to analysts.
The pledge was part of the proposed 15th five-year plan which was endorsed last week by the Communist Party’s Central Committee and will cover the years 2026-2030.
Details of the proposal were released on Tuesday, including a pledge to “strengthen strategic deterrence capabilities, [and] safeguard global strategic balance and stability”.
Strategic deterrence is generally understood to refer to nuclear forces, and the term has appeared in previous and current Chinese government documents.
In his party congress report in 2022, Xi said China would “build a strong strategic deterrence system”. And in 2021, the 14th five-year plan proposal said the country would “build a high-level strategic deterrence capability”.
However, this is the first time such a document has explicitly linked a nuclear build-up to maintaining a “global strategic balance and stability”.
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