China resists growing international pressure to join discussions with the United States and Russia for a trilateral nuclear arms pact.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday said Beijing will resist growing international pressure to join discussions with the United States and Russia for a trilateral nuclear arms pact to replace the expiring New START treaty.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at his Thursday press briefing that China found the expiration of New START “regrettable,” because the treaty was “vital to global strategic stability, and there is widespread concern over the impact on the international nuclear arms control system and global nuclear order after the treaty expires.”
Lin said that China nevertheless has no intention of joining negotiations for a new treaty because Beijing’s “defensive nuclear strategy” and “policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons” supposedly immunize it from needing to join any arms treaty, even though China has one of the fastest-growing nuclear arsenals in the world.
“Russia has proposed that both Russia and the U.S. continue to adhere to the central limits of the treaty. China hopes the U.S. will actively respond to Russia’s proposal, work out a responsible solution to the treaty’s expiration, and resume strategic stability dialogue with Russia at an early date,” he said.
China has insisted its nuclear arsenal is on a “totally different scale as those of the United States and Russia,” but that highly subjective claim is increasingly difficult to reconcile with objective data.
