Page 10 - AEI Insights Vol. 7 2021

AEI Insights, Vol 7, Issue 1, 2021

would help avoid some adverse effects, for example, another nuclear arms race under a Cold
War scenario (Zhao, 2020). Rose Gottemoeller, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
and International Security in the Barack Obama administration, believes it may be possible to
“make a case for the Chinese to come to the table early on intermediate-range constraints of
ground-launched missiles, because they are staring at the possibility of a deployment of very
capable U.S. missiles of this kind” (Mehta, 2020).
Apparently, the United States had counted on Russia’s support in such matters, especially as
the Russian leadership said more than once that the New START, signed in 2010, was to
become the last bilateral nuclear arms reduction treaty and time was ripe for other nuclear
states to join the nuclear disarmament process. However, in late 2019 Russia made a U-turn
in its stance on China’s participation in negotiations. Speaking at a conference entitled
“Foreign Policy Priorities of the Russian Federation in Arms Control and Nonproliferation in
the Context of Changes in the Global Security Architecture,” held on November 8, 2019 in
Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia respected China’s position
concerning its refusal to participate in the talks. Moreover, he stated that declaring China’s
consent to participate in the negotiating process as a precondition looked “openly
provocative.” Thus Russia made it clear that it had no intention of putting pressure on China
regarding the issue, but at the same time it would have nothing against the Chinese leadership
eventually making a decision to join the United States and Russia in nuclear disarmament
talks. Russia is unlikely to alter its position even under pressure from the United States, which
has long harbored plans for using the prolongation of the New START as a factor for getting
China involved in the talks in some way, or even securing its consent to become a signatory
to the treaty. Specifically, the U.S. president’s National Security Advisor Robert O’Brian
made an unequivocal statement on that score (Riechmann, 2020). Also, in May 2020, the
United States came up with an ultimatum that it would not extend the New START until
China agreed to participate in it. Moreover, the newly appointed special U.S. presidential
representative for arms control, Marshall Billingslea, actually demanded that Russia
“bring the Chinese to the negotiating table.”

The United States may exert (or is already exerting) pressure on China “indirectly,” for
example by using such levers as the U.S.-Chinese trade war and China’s alleged
“responsibility” for the spread of the coronavirus (which the United States regards as
proven). Such pressures may be largely exerted covertly.
Some military and political experts believe that it is worth exploring compromise options
of China’s participation in nuclear arms control. Such options may accommodate the
interests of all partakers and match the specific structure and quantitative parameters of
weapons subject to control. Establishing transparency in the given sphere would be one
of the “simple” ways of involving China in the strategic dialogue. In other words, such
transparency would imply mutual disclosure of information about the number of missiles
and deployed warheads, their basic parameters, including range, and also specific
locations and deployment sites (Tosaki, 2019). It must be noted that this seemingly “least
painful” and easy-to-accomplish solution for making China join the international arms
control dialogue is in fact least acceptable to it.
The long list of other proposals includes various options of a “mixed” approach to the
control of missile systems. For instance, reaching an agreement on a common ceiling for
intermediate-range ground-based and air-launched missiles or a similar restriction on
any strategic missiles regardless of the type of deployment (ground, sea, or air launched),
as well as the intermediate-range missiles of three nuclear powers―China, the United

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