No, China does not have 3000 nuclear weapons.

[Broccoli]

Hans M. Kristensen has written another good article.

Only the Chinese government knows how many nuclear weapons China has. As in most other nuclear weapon states, the number is a closely held secret. Even so, it is possible to make best estimates of the approximate size that benefit the public debate.

A recent example of how not to make an estimate is the study recently published by the Asia Arms Control Project at Georgetown University. The study (China’s Underground Great Wall: Challenge for Nuclear Arms Control) suggests that China may have as many as 3,000 nuclear weapons.

Although we don’t know exactly how many nuclear weapons China has, we are pretty sure that it doesn’t have 3,000. In fact, the Georgetown University estimate appears to be off by an order of magnitude.

Full article here.
No, China Does Not Have 3,000 Nuclear Weapons » FAS Strategic Security Blog

 

[S10]

China does not have nuclear weapons. Everybody knows they are just Wal-Mart toy bombs.

 

[Bukhari.syed]

Wikipedia gives much smaller value
List of states with nuclear weapons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[UKBengali]

All that is required is that China has the capability and the money to have manufactured 3000 nuclear weapons.

Whether it actually has them is completely irrelevant.

 

[U.S Navy SEALs]

Why would you need 3,000 Nuclear weapons anyways? Sounds pretty incompetent to me. High mantainence, you get nothing accomplished with 3,000 nuclear weapons that you cant get accomplished with 300-500.

 

[Sasquatch]

Not 3000 however over 1,000 would be a best bet.

 

[HavocHeaven]

Those strategists still live in cold war era. Wake up, stupid! Economy speaks louder than nukes.

 

[oct605032048]

quality is more important than quantity.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

quality is more important than quantity.

wrong, blast energy scales to the cube root of radius, so it is far superior to have 2 500 kt bombs than to have 1 MT bomb.

 

[Maira La]

wrong, blast energy scales to the cube root of radius, so it is far superior to have 2 500 kt bombs than to have 1 MT bomb.

You mean blast energy scales to the inverse of the cube root of the radius? Then I'd agree with you.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Well, China doesn't even have the nuke, because Herman Cain said so.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

You mean blast energy scales to the inverse of the cube root of the radius? Then I'd agree with you.

yes, sorry. basic mistake, it would be truly horrifying if it was directly to the cube root of radius...

 

[SinoChallenger]

Rumor on Chinese military BBS is 3000 to 4000.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Rumor on Chinese military BBS is 3000 to 4000.

We don't really give a damn about the opinions from those eggheads, since our military insiders already tell it.

Wanna know China's exact number of nukes? About ~3600.

 

[marshall]

We don't really give a damn about the opinions from those eggheads, since our military insiders already tell it.

Wanna know China's exact number of nukes? About ~3600.

I think it's unwise to be making up numbers that you can't prove. This is the same sort of speculation that is the reason this American report is considered an absolute joke in the intelligence community. The only traction it has gained are from those American factions with vested interests pushing for greater military spending to counter this imaginary threat.