China expanded its nuclear warhead stockpile over the past year and might have increased the number deployed with operational forces, a Swedish think tank report said, warning that major powers were “walking away” from disarmament commitments.According to the report released on Monday as part of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) latest yearbook, China added 20 warheads to its nuclear stockpile as of January 2026, bringing the total to 620, up from 600 a year earlier.China was significantly modernising and expanding its nuclear arsenal, with its warhead stockpile expected to “keep growing over the coming decade”, the report said.While the vast majority of Chinese warheads are thought to be stored separately from their launchers, Beijing may now be deploying warheads on missiles in a few mobile battalions during peacetime exercises. SIPRI estimates that China may have increased its deployed nuclear warheads with operational forces to about 34 in January, up from 24 in 2025.The report also estimated that China had 775 land-based missile silos as of January, with intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers exceeding those of Russia or the United States, and that Chinese ICBM inventories could match those of the other two countries by the turn of the decade.China’s JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missiles make their public debut at a military parade in Beijing in September 2025. Photo: Xinhua

Citing US government sources, the SIPRI report said nuclear warheads might have been loaded into some of the 100 missiles housed in three new silo fields, and possibly aboard a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine conducting near-continuous deterrence patrols.