By Sarah Salem

WASHINGTON — Classified intelligence shows China will make more nuclear weapons than the U.S., an Air Force general said here Thursday in a public meeting.

“I see a lot of intelligence at a classified level, and I’ve never seen anything that tells me they [China] intend to stop at parity. Why would they?” Lt. Gen. Andrew Gebara, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff of strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, told a working group hosted by the non-government Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center at the Rayburn House office building in Washington.

Many officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) attended the talk, including Administrator Jill Hruby and senior leaders from the agency’s labs.

In March, President Joe Biden (D) reportedly approved a new nuclear strategy in March for the U.S. that would alter the country’s deterrent while specifically focusing on China’s expanding nuclear arsenal. 

The Chinese state media agency Xinhua said a Chinese defense ministry spokesperson urged the U.S. to “substantially” decrease its arsenal instead, claiming that China’s nuclear arsenal was at a “minimum” level required for national security purposes.

Gebara said that China’s nuclear advancement has been “breathtaking” and that Russia remains a potent nuclear threat.

“[I]f you were to ask me can they [Russia] put a nuclear missile on those airplanes, can they launch those airplanes, and can they launch that missile from that airplane against the United States? The answer is yes they can. Have the losses they’ve faced in Ukraine affected their ability to do that? The answer is no it has not.”

The Department of Defense last year said China is expanding its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and investing in further expanding its nuclear forces. DOD estimates that Beijing had 500 operational nuclear warheads as of May 2023 and was on track to have over 1,000 operational warheads by 2030. These would be deployed by 2035, the Pentagon said.

“As a nation we have entered an increasingly complex international environment,” Gebara said.