China said this week it had stopped negotiations with the United States on possible nuclear weapons limitations, further hampering already stop-start nonproliferation talks at a time when the risks of a new arms race are rising.
In Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the decision was made after Washington had undermined its "core interests" by continuing to arm self-ruled Taiwan, the democratically governed island China views as its own.
The announcement, described by an arms control expert as "inexcusable," comes as China rapidly expands its nuclear arsenal, and as the U.S. modernizes its own nuclear triad of strategic bombers, ballistic missile submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
"Over the past weeks and months, despite China's firm opposition and repeated protest, the U.S. has continued to sell arms to Taiwan and done things that severely undermine China's core interests and the mutual trust between China and the U.S.," Lin said.
China accused the U.S. of compromising the "political atmosphere" for continuing arms control talks and thus decided to suspend discussions on a new round of consultations. "The responsibility fully lies with the U.S.," Lin said.
China's long-ruling Communist Party has the stated goal of "unifying" Taiwan with the Chinese mainland, with force if necessary. The U.S., meanwhile, has been Taipei's largest weapons supplier for decades and is obliged by an American domestic law to help Taiwan defend itself.
"China's rationale for rejecting talks with the United States on nuclear risk reduction and arms control is murky and probably involves more than pique about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
"It could be that leaders in Beijing did not see much benefit in the risk reduction proposals the United States presented at their last meeting in November 2023, or it could be that China simply wants to continue to increase the size of its arsenal so it has an assured nuclear retaliatory force before engaging with the United States," Kimball told Newsweek.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said China's "unfortunate" decision had undermined strategic stability between the two countries. "China has chosen to follow Russia's lead in asserting that engagement on arms control can't proceed when there are other challenges in the bilateral relationship."
On future arms sales to Taiwan, Miller said: "We will continue to make those efforts in the face of Chinese threats to their security."
Last year, President Vladimir Putin suspended Russia's participation in the New START Treaty, the last remaining arms control accords between the U.S. and Russia, due to expire in February 2026.
When it came into force in 2011, the agreement limited both countries to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed ballistic missiles and bombers.
Moscow has rejected further negotiations, citing Washington's "destructive stance" on bilateral relations, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said earlier this month.
In May, Bonnie Jenkins, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Beijing did not give a "substantive response" to Washington's risk reduction suggestions at their last round of negotiations in November, and had refused a follow-on meeting.
China possesses more than 500 nuclear warheads in operational status, the U.S. Defense Department's China military power report said last year. The Pentagon also estimated that the Chinese nuclear arsenal would expand to more than 1,000 warheads by 2030.
"The refusal of Russia and China to engage with the United States on nuclear risk reduction and arms control at a time of increasing nuclear risk is inexcusable, contrary to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligations, and is in the long run, not in their own self-interest," Kimball said.
"Without new restraints on the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals before New START expires, and without some nuclear restraint on the part of China, which is currently building up its arsenal, there is a serious possibility of an expensive, dangerous three-way nuclear arms race that will not produce 'winners' but only 'losers,'" he said.
Kimball said further communication to avoid misperception in a crisis remains the best strategy for securing "negotiated limits on nuclear and strategic capabilities."
"By expressing interest in negotiations and serious proposals that would address the concerns and interests of both sides, we can also better demonstrate we are part of the solution and are not part of the problem," he said.
On Friday, the U.S. Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration declassified its nuclear weapons stockpile for September 2021 to September 2023.
It was a move to demonstrate U.S. "leadership, transparency, and our commitment" to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, said Jenkins, the U.S. arms control official.
At the end of the fiscal year 2023, the U.S. had 3,748 operational nuclear warheads, 40 more than was recently estimated by the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington think tank that has repeatedly requested similar disclosures.
FAS assesses Russia had 4,380 operational warheads, for an estimated global inventory of more than 12,000, including over 1,000 in respective U.S. and Russian stores that are retired but not yet dismantled.
"The information also shows that the United States last year dismantled only 69 retired nuclear warheads, the lowest number since 1994," Hans Kristensen, director of FAS's Nuclear Information Project, wrote on Saturday.
"Excessive nuclear secrecy creates mistrust, fuels worst-case planning, and enables hard-liners and misinformers to exaggerate nuclear threats," he said.
In a separate report released last month, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank said China may have put some of its nuclear weapons—possibly around two dozen—on high operational alert for the first time.
In response, Lin, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said China maintains a no-first-use policy and restricts its nuclear capabilities to "the minimum level required for national security."
About the writer
Ryan Chan is a Newsweek reporter based in Hong Kong, where he previously had over a decade of experience at ... Read more
