China is considering tripling its stockpile of nuclear warheads to 900 by 2035 as tensions with the United States over Taiwan are expected to escalate further. It is reported by KYODO, citing sources close to the matter..

The plan, developed by the People's Liberation Army, has already been approved by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Chinese sources say..

As the ruling Communist Party of China builds up the country's military capabilities, the United States said last year that Beijing intends to increase its stockpile of nuclear warheads to 1,500 by 2035, when it aims to complete the modernization of its military..

Some experts warn that if China achieves its goal of modernizing its military, it may abandon its "

Last November, top Chinese military officials reaffirmed the importance of lethal capability by analyzing that Russia's strong nuclear deterrence prevented a direct clash between NATO and Moscow despite its aggression against Ukraine, agency sources said..

The number of nuclear warheads in China is likely to rise to 550 in 2027, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the country's armed forces, and to 900 in 2035, the sources added..

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads, while the US has 5,428..

Tensions between China and the United States are on the rise, especially after former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who was the country's third-ranking official at the time, visited Taiwan in early August last year..

Fears are rising that a self-governing democratic Taiwan could become a military flashpoint in the Asia-Pacific region in the near future as Beijing sees the island as a renegade province that needs to be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary..

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since they split in 1949 as a result of the civil war.. In 1979, Washington transferred its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, but the United States maintains substantial, albeit informal, exchanges with Taiwan and supplies it with billions of dollars worth of weapons and defense parts..

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The head of the US Air Force Air Mobility Command, General Mike Minnihan believes that the war between China and the United States could begin in two years. According to the general, there is less time left before a potential conflict than other senior US officials in the defense department believe..

The Chinese authorities are not satisfied with the current system of world order, in which Western values \u200b\u200band standards prevail, and global institutions subordinate to the United States function.. Read about how China is becoming more ambitious and persistent in achieving its own goals in the article by Natalia Butyrskaya "