China's Winning Global Arms Race

China is building up its armed forces at a rapid pace.

Its advances in missile technology, nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence have triggered serious concern among many Western observers, who believe a profound shift in the global balance of military power is under way.

President Xi Jinping has ordered China's armed forces to modernise by 2035. They should, he says, become a "world-class" military power, capable of "fighting and winning wars" by 2049.

It is a huge undertaking, but the country is on target.

Spending big
China has been criticised by some international experts for a "lack of transparency" over how much it spends on defence, and an "inconsistent reporting of figures".  Beijing does publish official spending data, but Western estimates of China's financial support for its armed forces are often significantly higher. 

 It is widely believed that China currently spends more on its armed forces than any country except the US.  The growth of China's military budget has outpaced its overall economic growth for at least a decade, according to the Center for Strategic and Interockholnational Studies in Washington.

Boosting the nuclear stockpile
In November, the US Department of Defense predicted that China was set to quadruple its nuclear stockpile by the end of the current decade. China, it said, "likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030".

Chinese state media called the claim "wild and biased speculation", adding that nuclear forces were kept at a "minimum level".

However, experts at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who publish annual assessments of global stockpiles, say China has been increasing the number of its warheads over recent years.  READ MORE...