US disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood accused China for resisting bilateral nuclear talks with the United States for the purpose of risk reduction despite the China’s continuous build-up of its nuclear arsenal. United States disarmament Ambassador leveled these accusations in a UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva during recent days. Wood further said that Beijing is not willing to engage meaningfully or establish expert discussions like those US has with Russia. Chinese Envoy Mr. Ji Zhaoyu strongly rebutted the Amb. Wood during same virtual meeting on disarmament and said that Beijing was prepared for dialogue and stand ready to carry out positive dialogue with all parties to jointly explore effective measures to reduce nuclear risk and to contribute to global strategic security.
Once US Secretary of States Anthony Blinken briefly described the purpose of United States START treaty with Russia and said that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) verification regime enables the US to monitor Russian compliance with the treaty and provides it with greater insight into Russia’s nuclear posture, including through data exchanges and onsite inspections that allow US inspectors to have eyes on Russian nuclear forces and facilities.
United States and Russia had concluded START treaty in 2010 and revived it for another five years term in the recent past. However, US government was pushing China to join this bilateral treaty to help risk reduction of nuclear weaponry of three big Nuclear powers. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his team at State Department was continuously working to include China into a trilateral agreement during 2020. Americans approached the Russian side to gain its help to push China into a trilateral agreement on the subject. However, China did not agree to get into the American’s trap. Chinese Spokesperson accused US for playing dumb and distorting Chinese position on the issue.
According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), presently China possess 320 war heads while US and Russia have 5800 and 6375 war heads respectively. Therefore, most of the analysts are in opinion that due to huge difference between nuclear arsenal of China and other two big powers, Chinese participation in arms reduction treaty is less likely to happen. Because Chinese do not like to negotiate the deal with their adversaries from the position of weakness, rather Chinese say that they are ready to join the negotiations if US come down to the position of China by reducing its stockpile. China also has doubts about US’s real intentions regarding the treaty.
In fact, America fears from the growing Chinese nuclear capabilities during the recent years as China has doubled its efforts to expand and diversify its nuclear weaponry to compete with US and Russia. There is growing public support for massive nuclearization in China and it is not going to sit with other two nations on the issue of risk reduction. Chinese think that US real intentions behind this treaty is to keep an eye on its rival’s nuclear teeth and their neutralization through counter strategy, which is evident by the Blinken’s statement on START during recent past. Chinese are more prudent in playing their cards than Russians and they would be a tough target for Americans to deal with. However, the blame game between two big Nuclear Powers is likely to continue without any result in future.
