“China is on a trajectory to be a strategic peer to us by the end of the decade,” said Adm. Charles Richard, who spoke at a virtual event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“They are about to finish building out for the first time an actual triad by adding a strategic capability to their air leg.”

A nuclear triad consists of air-, ground- and sea-based weapons.

“They have new command and control. They have new warning. They have better readiness,” he said. “While they espouse a minimum deterrent strategy, they have a number of capabilities that seem inconsistent with that.”

China is estimated to have about 300 nuclear weapons — a fraction of the 1,500 or so strategic warheads currently deployed by the US — and has espoused a strategy known as “minimum deterrence,” which seeks to ensure that a nation would have a sufficient second-strike capability if it were to suffer a nuclear attack, National Defense reported.

Unlike the US, China keeps its nuclear forces off-alert — its warheads are not mated to its missiles and its nuclear-armed submarines are not continuously at sea on armed patrols. This is consistent with a no first use policy.