China’s accelerating missile buildup is increasingly turning industrial capacity, stockpile depth, and sustained precision-strike capability into decisive factors in the emerging military balance over Taiwan and the wider Indo-Pacific.
This month, Bloomberg reported that China sharply accelerated missile production in 2025, citing an analysis of corporate filings that showed 81 listed Chinese firms disclosed supplying key components to the country’s missile industry, more than double the number recorded when President Xi Jinping took office in 2013.
According to Bloomberg, nearly 40% of those companies posted record revenues last year, with combined sales rising 20% to 189 billion yuan (US$28 billion), even as revenues among China’s 300 largest listed firms declined overall.
Bloomberg said the surge reflected a wave of new military orders tied to China’s push to expand missile stockpiles amid rising tensions with the US, the war in Iran and concerns over Taiwan.
The report identified firms linked to China’s two main state-owned missile makers, CASIC and CASC, producing components ranging from infrared sensors and stealth coatings to fiber-optic guidance systems for cruise and ballistic missiles.
The buildup underscores China’s drive to strengthen deterrence and prepare for a potential Indo-Pacific conflict, particularly over Taiwan, while also extending China’s strike reach across the region, including Guam.
China’s rapid expansion of missile production, deployment, and strike capacity is reshaping the military balance in a potential Taiwan conflict. Despite persistent structural weaknesses in its defense industry, China appears to hold significant advantages over the US in missile production speed, stockpile replenishment, and industrial surge capacity.
Highlighting China’s missile buildup, the 2024 US Department of Defense China Military Power Report (CMPR) estimates that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force’s (PLARF) arsenal grew by almost 50% over four years, to about 3,500 missiles.
That growth is backed by a substantial increase in production and storage facilities, with CNN reporting in November 2025 that China expanded 60% of 136 missile-related facilities between 2020 and 2025, adding over 21 million square feet of floor space, identifying 99 missile manufacturing sites, of which 65 have expanded.
On missile deployment, The New York Times reported in September 2025 that China is expanding and dispersing missile deployments along its eastern coast facing Taiwan. It reported that missile brigades have built larger new bases and added launch pads and facilities for mobile launchers.
The report says Chinese forces practice launching missiles from farm fields, valleys, expressways and coastal outcrops near Taiwan. It notes that during wartime, commanders would deploy mobile missile units to caves and protected sites, then move them after firing to avoid detection.
In the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, Lyle Goldstein, in an October 2025 Defense Priorities report, says China would use ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, rocket artillery, drones and airpower to suppress Taiwan’s air defenses and strike radars, command-and-control nodes, airbases, naval facilities and logistics infrastructure.
Goldstein says Chinese strike missions could number in the thousands per day initially, while China’s industrial capacity would allow it to replenish missile stocks during a prolonged conflict and sustain repeated strikes on Taiwanese airfields.
Looking into the effect of Chinese missile strikes on Taiwanese airfields, Kelly Grieco and Hunter Slingbaum argue in a March 2026 Stimson report that Chinese missile and artillery strikes could crater Taiwan’s runways and taxiways, grounding Taiwanese fighters for days or weeks, and potentially for months if China employed more advanced missile systems or aerial bombardment.
Using modeling based on DF-11 and DF-15 missile attacks, they say China could keep Taiwan’s fighter bases closed for over two weeks, and nearly a month if long-range artillery were added.
They also note that five successful strikes could disable all operational surfaces at Ching Chuan Kang Air Base, leaving surviving aircraft unable to take off or land, while repeated Chinese follow-up strikes could keep airfields unusable during the conflict’s opening phase.
Comparing China’s missile production capacity to that of the US, a January 2026 Heritage Foundation report states that Chinese state-owned defense enterprises are reportedly producing munitions, high-end weapons systems, and other equipment at rates approximately five to six times faster than their US counterparts.
The report further assesses that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could plausibly surge output of selected munition types by roughly 150–250% within six to eight months of national mobilization.
It attributes this potential to military-civil fusion policies, automated “smart factory” production lines, the rapid conversion of dual-use civilian industry, and China’s access to critical inputs such as rare-earth elements and energetic materials.
In comparison, Seth Jones argues in a May 2026 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report that the US military lacks sufficient munitions and industrial readiness for a prolonged war with China, particularly in long-range strike and air defense systems.
According to Jones, US stockpiles of long-range offensive missiles and air defense interceptors were already low before the Iran War and were further depleted during the conflict.
He notes that replenishment timelines are lengthy, taking over four years for some SM-3 IIA interceptors and roughly three years for systems such as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors, SM-6, SM-3 IB, Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), Tomahawk cruise missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSMs).
Recognizing those risks, Tom Karako and Jerry McGinn, in a CSIS podcast this month, advocate expanding multiyear procurement contracts, increasing funding for munitions production, broadening the industrial base through second- and third-source suppliers, and pursuing co-production arrangements with allies to strengthen US missile manufacturing capacity.
They stress the need for sustained government demand signals to give industry confidence to invest in workforce, assembly lines and long-lead materials, while also promoting a “high-low mix” of munitions that combines high-end precision weapons with cheaper mass-produced systems and expanded production capacity.
As China continues to expand its missile arsenal, industrial base and precision-strike capabilities, the emerging Indo-Pacific balance may increasingly depend not only on operational military power but also on which side can sustain high-intensity missile warfare over the long term.
