China has been growing its stockpile of nuclear warheads by about 100 a year as its top leader, Xi Jinping, pushes to expand his nuclear options. But its production of warheads slowed last year, the Pentagon said, without specifying a cause.

随着中国最高领导人习近平着手扩充其核选项，中国核武库近年来以每年约100枚的速度增长。但五角大楼表示，去年其核弹头生产速度有所放缓，具体原因未予说明。

The U.S. Department of Defense’s latest annual report on China’s armed forces estimated that its warhead count was in the “low 600s” by the end of 2024, “reflecting a slower rate of production.” That count is roughly the same as the Pentagon’s last estimate that China had around 600 warheads as of mid-2024.

美国国防部最新发布的中国军力年度报告估计，截至2024年底中国核弹头数量处于“略超出600枚”的水平，“反映出生产速度放缓”。这一数字与五角大楼此前估计的截至2024年年中约600枚基本持平。

Nonetheless, the latest report, released late on Tuesday, says Beijing is on track to have about 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, giving Mr. Xi a larger and more diverse range of those highly destructive weapons on missiles, submarines and bombers. In a crisis or war, he could use them to warn and deter — and in the ultimate extreme, strike — enemies.

值得注意的是，这份于周二晚间发布的最新报告指出，按当前发展趋势，到2030年北京将拥有约1000枚核弹头，使习近平能在导弹、潜艇和轰炸机上部署的此类高度破坏性武器更大、更多样。在危机或战争状态下，这些核力量可用于警告威慑，乃至在极端情况下实施打击。

Perhaps just as important, the report says that even if China slowed its output of nuclear warheads, Mr. Xi and his commanders appear to be seeking to shorten the time it would take to launch a nuclear counterattack, if China’s nuclear forces came under fire. The shift to what Chinese military planners call an “early-warning counterstrike” is intended to warn potential enemies not to underestimate China’s nuclear readiness and resolve.

或许同样重要的是，报告称，即便中国放慢了核弹头的生产步伐，习近平及其军队的指挥层似乎仍在寻求缩短中国的核力量遭到攻击后做出核反击的响应时间。中国军事规划者所称的“预警反击”模式转型旨在警示潜在对手切勿低估中国的核战备状态与反击决心。

With this hair-trigger posture, the “warning of a missile strike enables a counterstrike launch before an enemy first strike can detonate,” the Pentagon report says. “China likely will continue to refine and train on this capability throughout the rest of the decade.”

五角大楼的报告称，在这种高度戒备的姿态下，“在敌方首轮打击引爆前，导弹袭击预警即能触发反击发射”。“中国很可能会在这个十年的剩余时间里，继续改进并训练这一能力。”

五角大楼的一份报告称，习近平及其军队的指挥层似乎正试图缩短发起核反击所需的时间。

Overall, the report says, “China’s historic military buildup has made the U.S. homeland increasingly vulnerable.”

总体上，报告评估认为，“中国前所未有的军事建设，已使美国本土变得日益脆弱。”

The Department of Defense’s annual report on the People’s Liberation Army is widely read by policymakers and experts as a benchmark for assessing and debating China’s capabilities, especially in the nuclear weapons realm.

美国国防部关于中国人民解放军的年度报告被政策制定者和专家广泛视为评估和讨论中国的军事能力——尤其是核武器领域——的一个重要参考标准。

The new report — the first of its kind during President Trump’s second term — amplifies a finding in the 2024 report that China was preparing to adopt early-warning counterstrike capabilities, which nuclear planners also call “launch on warning.” Its findings also echo recent studies by experts.

这份新报告是特朗普总统第二个任期内的首份此类报告，该报告强化了2024年报告中提到的一项发现，即中国正准备采用预警反击能力，也就是核规划人员所谓的“预警即发射”。该结论也与近期专家研究成果相互印证。

Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi have been trying to improve relations, pulling back partly from a trade and tariff war. But military tensions persist, and China’s emergence as a nuclear power has become a source of anxiety in Washington, especially while Russia also makes threatening nuclear moves.

特朗普和习近平一直在努力改善双边关系，从贸易关税战中有所回撤。不过，军事紧张态势依然持续，而且中国作为核力量的崛起已成为华盛顿的忧虑源头，尤其当俄罗斯同时展现威胁性核动向之际。

The growing evidence that China is shifting to a higher degree of readiness for nuclear retaliation may add to debate about how the United States should respond to two big nuclear rivals, with fielding more nuclear weapons as one option.

越来越多的证据表明，中国正在向更高程度的核报复戒备状态转变，这可能会加剧人们对于美国应如何应对两个主要核对手的争论，部署更多的核武器就是其中的一个选项。

“Such a change in China’s nuclear posture would have significant implications for U.S. national security, U.S.-China relations, and stability and security in East Asia,” David C. Logan of Tufts University and Phillip C. Saunders of the National Defense University in Washington wrote in a study of China and “launch on warning” that was published last month.

塔夫茨大学的戴维·洛根与华盛顿国防大学的菲利普·桑德斯在上月发表的关于中国“预警即发射”能力的研究报告中指出：“中国核态势的此种转变将对美国国家安全、美中关系及东亚稳定与安全产生重大影响。”

特朗普总统和习近平一直在努力改善两国关系，但军事紧张局势依然存在。

Mr. Xi “may be the only one with the authority to decide not to execute a pre-planned nuclear response to an accidental or limited nuclear attack,” they wrote.

他们写道，习近平“可能是唯一有权决定是否取消执行针对意外或有限核攻击的预定核反击方案的人”。

The United States and Russia still have much larger nuclear arsenals than China has. Russia has about 5,459 warheads, including 1,718 that are deployed, while the United States has 5,177, with about 1,770 deployed, according to experts from the Federation of American Scientists. And both Washington and Moscow have long kept some nuclear missiles on high alert to launch within minutes if ordered.

美国和俄罗斯的核武库规模仍远超中国。美国科学家联盟的专家认为，俄罗斯拥有约5459枚核弹头，其中1718枚处于部署状态；美国则拥有5177枚核弹头，约1770枚已完成部署。长期以来，华盛顿与莫斯科都让部分核弹处保持高度戒备状态，一旦接到命令，可以在几分钟内发射。

The addition of China into this mix could make it harder to avoid dangerous miscalculations in a crisis, said Tong Zhao, an expert on China’s nuclear weapons strategy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

卡内基国际和平基金会中国核武器战略专家赵通指出，中国的加入可能使危机中避免危险误判的难度加大。

“Today, with China moving to ‘launch on warning,’ it’s happening in a much more technologically challenging environment,” Mr. Zhao said in an interview before the release of the Pentagon report. He cited the potentially destabilizing effects of A.I. and increasingly maneuverable missiles, which could magnify the risks of misunderstanding an enemy’s moves.

“今天，中国正在转向‘预警即发射’，而这一切发生在一个技术上更加复杂的环境中,”赵通在五角大楼报告发布前接受采访时说。他提到，人工智能以及机动性不断增强的导弹可能产生潜在的不稳定效应，从而放大误判对手行动的风险。

China does not disclose how many nuclear weapons it has, and for decades it has declared that it would never be the first country in a war to launch them. The new Pentagon report cites several developments to argue that China’s shift to a more attack-ready nuclear force is well underway.

中国从不公开核武器数量，数十年来始终声明绝不首先使用核武器。但新版五角大楼报告列举多项进展，认为中国正在向更具进攻准备的核力量转变稳步推进。

Above all, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force has been installing intercontinental ballistic missiles in launch silos across three fields in arid northern China. The fields have a total of about 320 silos, and probably more than 100 have been loaded with DF-31 intercontinental ballistic missiles, the report says. In September 2024, China test-launched a road-mobile variant of the DF-31, which flew roughly 7,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean.

首先，中国人民解放军火箭军正在该国北方干旱地区的三大区域部署用于发射洲际弹道导弹的发射井。报告称，这些区域总共有大约320个发射井，其中可能已有100多个装填了东风-31洲际弹道导弹。2024年9月，中国试射了东风-31公路机动型，该导弹穿越太平洋，飞行了大约11000公里。

2021年，中国哈密附近，分析人士认为这里是一座洲际弹道导弹发射井的施工现场。

China has also been putting into orbit more early-warning satellites that can detect intercontinental ballistic missiles heading its way, and installing more land-based radars that can detect incoming missiles while they are still thousands of miles away, the Pentagon report says.

五角大楼的报告还指出，中国正将更多能探测来袭洲际弹道导弹的预警卫星送入轨道，同时部署更多能在数千公里外侦测到来袭导弹的陆基雷达系统。

Still, China’s move to its new nuclear posture could take some time, said Mr. Zhao of Carnegie. “China needs a well-developed command, control and communication system to connect all the different sensors, and it needs to develop the capability to integrate all the data seamlessly into a central system,” he said. “That is not easy.”

卡内基的赵通说，尽管如此，中国向这种新的核姿态转变可能还需要一段时间。“中国需要一个高度完善的指挥、控制和通信系统，所有不同的传感器连接起来，而且还需要开发将所有数据无缝整合到一个中央系统的能力，这并不容易。”

The Pentagon report also says Beijing is not fully confident that it could invade and take control of Taiwan, the island democracy that rejects Beijing’s claims that it is Chinese territory.

五角大楼的报告还称，北京并不完全确信自己有能力入侵并控制台湾。台湾是一个民主岛屿，它拒绝接受北京关于它是中国领土的主张。

The United States could intervene to support Taiwan if it were attacked, and Chinese leaders “remain unsure of the P.L.A.’s readiness to successfully seize Taiwan while countering U.S. involvement,” the report said. Still, China “continues to refine multiple military options to force Taiwan unification by brute force,” it said.

该报告称，如果台湾遭到袭击，美国可能会介入支持它，而中国领导人“仍然不确定人民解放军能否在反制美国介入的同时成功夺取台湾”。尽管如此，报告说，中国“仍在不断完善多种以武力强行推动台湾统一的军事选项”。

Last year, the report said, China “tested essential components of these options, including through exercises to strike sea and land targets, strike U.S. forces in the Pacific and block access to key ports.”

报告称，去年中国“测试了这些选项中的关键部分，包括打击海上和陆地目标，打击在太平洋的美军，以及封锁重要港口通道的演习”。