For China - and to some extent Russia as well - the quality of the deterrence matters more than the quantity alone, assuming the quantity is beyond certain threshold. China seems to realize that it was not a good idea to place too many RVs on TELs and have opted to diversify their deterrence by adding those few hundreds of silos, which is a significant investment, the ramification of which is not well perceived outside of ICs.
Why didn't they just add those RVs to DF-41 (or whatever came after) instead of going by the silo approach? was it because 41's capabilities in throw-weight or something else, like survivability?
Why did they place single-tipped DF-31BJ in the silos instead of a silo version of the DF-41?
Why did they produce a single-tipped DF-5C a few years after revealing the MIRV-ed 5B?
Behind closed doors there has to be careful deliberation within China's various bodies governing nuclear doctrines & strategic postures on these matters. Many things would affect the answers to these questions, including but not limited to the following:
- package of RVs currently available to produce besides the good old type 535, and whether the much smaller 575 is a real thing or not;
- technology/facilities available for LOW, which by now is most likely positive given the silos are being filled;
- willingness to participate arms control talks at some stage, and if so which models are likely to be used as chips on the table.
- what are the most threatening launchers the US can deploy against China, and what chips China is willing to offer in exchange to remove that threat. Some believe it is likely some sort of nuclear-tipped MRBM/IRBMs in those island chains, but we'll see.
