The New Nuclear Arms Race in Asia : What It Means for New Zealand

The world may already be in the early stages of a new nuclear arms race, and its new epicentre is the Asia-Pacific. That’s the rather stark conclusion formed by Dr Daniel Salisbury, one of the world's leading analysts on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

His research is released as part of this weeks APRSA report, ahead of this weekend’s Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore.  

As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in September 2025, "the world is sleepwalking into a new nuclear arms race. More complex, more unpredictable and even more dangerous."

For New Zealanders, citizens of a proudly nuclear-free nation in a region where six (seven if you count France) of the nine nuclear-armed states either have territory or a significant military presence, this development is not an abstract geopolitical concern.

It’s probably easier to count the nuclear-armed nations not present in the Asia-Pacific : The UK, and Israel.  

China's Dramatic Expansion

The most significant driver of this new instability is China's rapid and substantial nuclear build-up. As recently as 2020, assessments put Beijing's arsenal in the "low 200s" of warheads. By 2025, the United States Department of Defence assessed that China had stockpiled warheads "in the low 600s" and was "on track to have over 1,000 warheads by 2030", a near fivefold increase in roughly a decade.

Open-source western satellite analysis identified the construction of 350 new missile silos across three fields in northern China in 2021 alone. China's September 2025 Victory Day Parade in Beijing showcased new nuclear delivery systems for land, sea and air, including the debut of an air-launched nuclear-tipped missile.

China has also been developing advanced hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), weapons capable of travelling at more than five times the speed of sound and able to evade some  missile defences. These systems are designed, in part, to counter American ballistic missile defence infrastructure. As Dr Salisbury's research notes, the United States DoD acknowledged in 2024 that China's advanced delivery systems were developed "in part due to long-term concerns about United States missile defence capabilities."

 A Region on Edge

China is not alone. North Korea, the region's youngest nuclear state, has an estimated  50 warheads and has produced material for up to 90. Pyongyang continues to develop hypersonic systems of its own, partly to penetrate missile-defence systems deployed by South Korea, Japan, and the United States Navy.

North Korean leader Kim Ill Jong examines his country's first nuclear bomb in 2017/ image supplied

In South Asia, India and Pakistan each hold approximately 170 warheads, and in May 2025, the two nations fought one of their most serious armed conflicts in recent decades, a confrontation in Kashmir played out in the shadow of their nuclear arsenals. The concern is that India was willing to ignore Pakistan’s usual threats about a nuclear exchange, and the next flare-up along the Line of Control could be a far more serious one.

Both nations are also developing Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology, which allows a single missile to carry several warheads aimed at different targets.

Russia, meanwhile, continues to modernise its arsenal with weapons delivery systems including the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile and the Poseidon nuclear-powered torpedo. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which had placed limits on American and Russian deployed strategic warheads, expired in February 2026 after Russia suspended participation in 2023. The United States let it lapse.

"If it expires, it expires. … We'll just do a better agreement," said Donald Trump to the New York Times, adding that he'd want to "get a couple of other players involved." On the day the treaty actually lapsed, Trump posted on social media that "we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved and modernised Treaty." No negotiations have occurred to date though.

The Proliferation Dilemma

Perhaps the most unsettling dimension of the new IISS assessment is the growing risk that more nations may seek to obtain their own nuclear weapons. Extended deterrence, the American commitment to defend allies using nuclear weapons if necessary, the so-called "nuclear umbrella", all these things have historically discouraged allied states from pursuing their own nuclear arsenals. But that reassurance is now under stress.

South Korea's then-president Yoon Suk-Yeol publicly raised the possibility of a national nuclear deterrent in 2023, reflecting high levels of domestic public support. In Japan, former prime minister Abe Shinzo in 2022 and then-prime ministerial candidate Ishiba Shigeru in 2024 both raised the idea of nuclear-sharing arrangements similar to those in NATO.

Both Japan and South Korea have substantial civilian nuclear industries, technical expertise, and missile systems capable of delivering nuclear warheads with minimal modification.

The contrast between North Korea and Iran also sends troubling signals to would-be proliferators. Iran's long and arguably open approach to developing its nuclear programme ended with American strikes on its facilities in June 2025, as part of Operation Midnight Hammer. North Korea, by contrast, has developed its weapons covertly and successfully. The lesson for those contemplating the bomb is painfully clear : waste no time and do it quietly.

What It Means for New Zealand

New Zealand's nuclear-free status, enshrined in the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, remains a cornerstone of national identity and foreign policy. But the IISS analysis makes it clear that good intentions and domestic legislation cannot insulate a country from the consequences of nuclear instability in its region.

New Zealand's closest defence partners (Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom) are all deeply embedded in the dynamics described in this report. The Australia–United Kingdom–United States (AUKUS) agreement, which involves eventually providing Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines, has come under pressure from the Trump administration but appears to be proceeding. Australia is also acquiring long-range strike capabilities, including Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. These developments, combined with American military deployments in the Philippines and Japan, shift the strategic picture in the Pacific in ways that affect New Zealand even as Wellington stands outside these arrangements.

A Sea hawk Helicopter takes off from the USS Curtis Wilbur, Pacific Ocean, Feb 2025. /image US Navy yer

The IISS assessment also highlights the near-total absence of risk-reduction frameworks in the Asia-Pacific comparable to those developed during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. China has no formalised pre-launch missile notification agreement with the United States, although both sides send informal advisories on things like missile tests.  As Daniel Salisbury soberly concludes, such formal frameworks "may only emerge after a significant regional crisis."

For New Zealand, which has long championed disarmament, supported the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and taken principled stances against nuclear weapons, the deteriorating regional environment represents both a warning and a challenge. The question is whether the international community can build some workable guardrails before a regional crisis forces the issue.

Asia Media Centre