The Pentagon says China could have at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by the end of this decade

• The Pentagon released a new report on China's growing military might on Wednesday.
• Last year, it reported that China could double the size of its nuclear arsenal, believed to be in the low-200s.

The Pentagon sharply adjusted its predictions of China's nuclear program, estimating that the country could have as many as 1,000 nuclear warheads by the end of this decade.

Last year, the Department of Defense assessed that China's nuclear weapons stockpile was somewhere in the low-200s and predicted that its nuclear arsenal could double in size as China takes steps to improve, expand, and modernize its nuclear forces.

In a new report released Wednesday, the Pentagon said that the "accelerating pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027."

The report further explained that "the PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020."

The Pentagon said in its latest annual report on China's growing military power that China "is constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this force expansion" adding that "the PRC likely intends to use some of this infrastructure to produce plutonium for its expanding nuclear weapons program."

China is also building hundreds of new missile silos capable of supporting nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, facilities that arms control researchers have spotted via commercial satellite imagery.

A defense official told Bloomberg that the predictions for the possible expansion of China's nuclear arsenal are not intelligence community numbers.

In its report, the Department of Defense pointed to hawkish Chinese media, in this case the Global Times, and former Chinese military officer arguments that China needs as many as 1,000 nuclear warheads and the ability to achieve "mutually assured destruction" - where it has enough weapons to survive a nuclear attack and destroy its enemy.

The department also called attention to a US think tank report that said China could field 1,000 nuclear warheads by the end of the decade.

"Regardless of the ultimate number of nuclear weapons it makes, the PRC will probably continue to claim it is, like other nuclear powers, adhering to the minimum of nuclear weapons needed to protect its security interests," the Pentagon said.

Even if China does dramatically increase the size of its nuclear arsenal, it will continue to be overshadowed by the much larger arsenals possessed by the US and Russia, which have 5,550 and 6,255 warheads respectively.

In addition to its reporting on numbers, the Pentagon also noted capability improvements, stating that "the PRC has possibly already established a nascent "nuclear triad" with the development of a nuclear capable air-launched ballistic missile and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities."

Though the US has noticed what appears to be evolutions in China's nuclear posture, China continues to maintain a "no first use" nuclear policy.