Evidence is mounting that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is dangerously unstable under the leadership of Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping. Military purges, doctrinal shifts and China’s rapid nuclear buildup threaten global deterrence measures, analysts say.
Indo-Pacific nations are increasingly concerned about the PLA’s unpredictable behavior and especially of a miscalculation or misstep leading to an unauthorized nuclear launch.
In February 2026, the United States accused China of conducting a secret nuclear test in June 2020 in violation of the long-standing global moratorium. The accusation came the week that the 2010 U.S.-Russia treaty for the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms, known as New START, expired.
“I can reveal that the U.S. government is aware that China has conducted nuclear explosive tests, including preparing for tests with designated yields in the hundreds of tons,” U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Thomas DiNanno stated to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland.
“The PLA sought to conceal testing by obfuscating the nuclear explosions because it recognized these tests violate test ban commitments. China has used decoupling – a method to decrease the effectiveness of seismic monitoring – to hide their activities from the world,” DiNanno said.
China, which denied the U.S. claim, has been accelerating its nuclear-weapons program. It has doubled its stockpile in the past five years with the goal of fielding as many warheads as the U.S. by the mid-2030s, according to the U.S. Department of War’s China Military Power Report, released in December 2025. China had about 600 nuclear warheads as of 2024 and is on track to exceed 1,000 by 2030, the report stated. The U.S. has an estimated 3,700 warheads in its stockpile, including deployed and stored weapons.
“China, for its part, refuses to enter any arms-control negotiation that might cap its rapidly rising arsenal,” Brahma Chellaney, an India-based geostrategist and author, wrote in a recent essay for The Hill newspaper. “The result is a world sliding toward an unconstrained arms race, with fewer safety valves and greater risks of miscalculation.”
Meanwhile, Xi continues his purge of top generals, including those overseeing China’s nuclear program.
“China had at least 30 generals and admirals at the start of 2023 who ran specialized departments and theater commands,” The New York Times reported in early February 2026. “Nearly all of them have been expelled or have disappeared during Xi Jinping’s sweeping purge.” Only seven of the 30 military leaders remain.
The most recent purge victims, Gen. Zhang Youxia and Gen. Liu Zhenli, were key PLA operational leaders. Their removal leaves a void, Shanshan Mei, a PLA expert with the U.S.-based Rand Corp., told the newspaper.
“There’s no one right now at the highest level who has operational experience or who is in charge of training and exercises,” Mei said. “This is going to cut very deep, and there’s more to come, possibly.”
Analysts say the purge is damaging PLA morale.
“This confluence of factors – serial Russian violations, growth of worldwide stockpiles, and flaws in New START’s design and implementation – gives the United States a clear imperative to call for a new architecture that addresses the threats of today, not those of a bygone era,” DiNanno told the disarmament conference. “This means taking into account all Russian nuclear weapons, both novel and existing strategic systems, and addressing the breakout growth of Chinese nuclear weapons stockpiles.”
China’s instability could prompt nuclear-armed states such as India and Pakistan to ramp up their arsenals, analysts say. It could also deepen Indo-Pacific alliances and partnerships, with nonnuclear states such as Japan and South Korea likely seeking greater security assurances under the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
Japan, for example, is strengthening its defense posture under its updated National Security Strategy and reaffirming its “indispensable” alliance with the U.S. in the face of mounting security threats from China, North Korea and Russia, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official recently told the Anadolu Agency, a Türkiye-based news organization.
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