China in the midst of a very significant modernisation of its nuclear programme: Think Tank

New Delhi, June 16: China is in the midst of a significant modernisation of its nuclear programme, a leading conflict and armaments think tank has said.

China, India and Pakistan are also modernising their weapons according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's Yearbook 2020. According to the latest data, the total number of nuclear warheads in the nine nuclear armed states has gone down from 13,865 in 2019 to 13,400 in 2020.

This decline has however been attributed to reduction by both US and Russia. The report says that China has 320 nuclear warheads, while Pakistan and India have 160 and 150 respectively.

This is as per the figures updates until January 2020. Last year, India and its neighbours were ranked in the same order. Last year China had 290 nuclear warheads, while Pakistan had 150-160 and India 130-140.

SIPRI said in a statement that China is carrying out significant modernisation of its nuclear arsenal and developing a so-called nuclear trial for the first time, made up of new land and sea based missiles and nuclear capable fighter jets.

India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces, the statement also read. The yearbook found that there has been an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2019. All nuclear weapon possessing countries continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals, it also noted.

Russia and United States with 6,375 and 5,800 nuclear warheads possess more than 90 per cent of the global nuclear weapons. US, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, the nine nuclear armed countries together possess an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons as on January 2020, the report also noted.