Tbh I don't think the new staged combustion engine has been ready because its first hot test was in 2022. I would say it could reach the point of deployment by 2027 or 2028 but it wouldn't matter. This very "DF-5C" is perhaps storable always-on-alert DF-5A.
Fissile material is much easier to build than missiles and guidance system. I am flattered that DoD report mentions about plutonium retraction though they complete get it wrong.
They haven't known about the 3rd 200ton/year reprocessing plant yet and didn't mention the expansion of old plant 404. Also the warhead plant was never publicly revealed by US official, I wonder why.
DoD:
The DoD interpretation is Chinese SLBM will be equipped with single warhead until the introduction of Type 096.
So they are basically saying that JL-2A is a JL-2 with longer range, well then why call it JL-3. For their information, DF-31 is like a chicken to dinosaur compared to DF-31AG but PLA still called it DF-31XYZ instead of DF-41.
"The Type 096 SSBN is probably intended to field MIRVed SLBMs and will likely begin construction in the early 2020s."
It could be changing when it went into 2020s and 2030s. Many unconfirmed sources are claiming China is developing new warheads with new yield/weight by using data acquired from one way or another.
535 is the code name given by CAEP (China's Los Alamos) and the men in service called the warhead in the name of its missile. For example, the warhead of DF-31 is called DF-31 warhead and the warhead of DF-41 is called DF-41 warhead.
The warhead design is still changing and I just don't know they could be using old data to design warhead different with tested yield.
For example, the Victory Day parade and the PLA parade, when the ICBMs, DF-31 ann DF- 5B, which are strategic nuclear weapons, crushed through the screen and dazzled the world, the designer in the research lab would stand up and yell: "Look, look! There is my design, my calculation in this warhead." (Note: both of them use 535 warhead)
The new generation designers would be thinking, "When the warhead I designed is paraded 10 years later, I'll be able to proudly say to my son, look at this, your dad's team did this!" Is that something you can buy with higher salary?
I mean if US can design W93 warhead from old data without new test, China can do the same thing though. Anyway great power could return to nuclear test as we are speaking and better prepared for a huge kaboom in Lop nur. The new tunnel is in the area of old vertical shart, which is unusally used for large yield tests.
