Pentagon says China to have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035

Washington: China is expanding its nuclear force and is likely to have a stockpile of about 1,500 warheads by 2035, up from the current estimated number of 400, the Pentagon has said in a report that notes that Beijing aims to expand its national power through both domestic and foreign policy initiatives.

In its annual report to Congress on China's ambitious military build-up, the

Pentagon said on Tuesday that over the next decade, Beijing aims to modernise, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces.

China's current nuclear modernisation exercise has exceeded the previous modernisation attempts in both scale and complexity, it said.

China is investing in and expanding the number of its land, sea, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to

support this major expansion of its nuclear forces, accrording to the report.