The Pentagon report said China could have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 and had started building at least "three intercontinental ballistic missile silo fields".

After a Pentagon report highlighted a major increase in China's nuclear warhead arsenal over the next decade, the country's foreign ministry dismissed it as "full of prejudice".

China's foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the report "ignores facts" and "is purely just manipulative banter".

The Pentagon report said China could have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 and had started building at least "three intercontinental ballistic missile silo fields".

However, the Chinese foreign ministry said it was "cheap tricks based on gossip" while accusing the US of being the "largest nuclear threat to this world."

Reports claim the US has 3,750 nuclear warheads. The Pentagon report said China's nuclear arsenal had grown faster than expected while adding that the country is building a "nuclear triad".

The report claimed that the Xi regime is also building the infrastructure necessary to support major expansion of its nuclear forces.

Last year the Pentagon report had said that China possessed 200 nuclear warheads and was in line to double the number by the end of the decade, however, the latest report projected a dramatic increase in China's warhead producing capability.

The report comes as tensions between the US and China has grown over Taiwan as Chinese jets last month repeatedly entered Taipei's air defence zone.