China expands nuclear arsenal as global tensions grow among atomic powers, SIPRI says
- India, Pakistan and North Korea also upped their stockpiles, but the bulk of the increase was from China, which increased its arsenal from 350 to 410 warheads
- ‘What we’re seeing is China stepping up as a world power, that is the reality of our time,’ said the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
The nuclear arsenals of several countries, especially China, grew last year and other atomic powers continued to modernise theirs as geopolitical tensions rise, researchers said on Monday.
“We are approaching, or maybe have already reached, the end of a long period of the number of nuclear weapons worldwide declining,” Dan Smith, director of the think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told Agence France-Presse.
Of those, 9,576 were in “military stockpiles for potential use”, 86 more than a year earlier.
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SIPRI distinguishes between countries’ stockpiles available for use and their total inventory – which includes older ones expected to be dismantled.