Page 7 - AEI Insights Vol. 7 2021

AEI-Insights: An International Journal of Asia-Europe Relations
ISSN: 2289-800X, Vol. 7, Issue 1, January 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37353/aei-insights.vol7.issue1.1

TRIANGULARITY OF NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL: POSSIBLE
IMPLICATIONS OF CHINA’S INVOLVEMENT IN NUCLEAR ARMS
TALKS

Alexander G. Savelyev

Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Moscow,
Russian Federation

dessa@ifimes.org

Abstract
Beijing explains its firm unwillingness to join the United States and Russia in nuclear arms
control talks by the fact that China’s nuclear arsenal is incomparable with respective potentials
of the world’s two leading nuclear powers. China urges Russia and the U.S. to go ahead with
the nuclear disarmament process on a bilateral basis, and promises it will be prepared to
consider the possibility of its participation in the negotiations only when its counterparts have
downgraded their arsenals approximately to China’s level. Washington finds this totally
unacceptable and demands that China either join the existing Russian-U.S. strategic New
START treaty right away or agree to enter into a trilateral nuclear arms control format. This
article studies the prospects of China’s involvement in nuclear arms talks and analyzes the
true reasons behind Beijing’s desire to avoid any nuclear disarmament deals at this point. The
working hypothesis of this paper is that China’s stance on the above issue is by no means far-
fetched or propagandistic, and that it is driven by fundamental political, military and strategic
considerations. Disregard for this factor and further forceful efforts to bring China to the
negotiating table to discuss nuclear arms control will lead to failure.
Keywords: China, the United States, New START, Russia, nuclear arms control, China’s nuclear doctrine,
nuclear disarmament, no-first-use principle.

Introduction

In December 2019, the United States officially invited China to enter into a strategic security
dialogue. The White House said it hoped Beijing’s consent to this proposal might become the
first step towards an international agreement encompassing all nuclear weapons of the United
States, Russia, and China. As expected, this proposal was rejected. China said its nuclear
arsenal was much smaller than those of the United States and Russia, and it would be able to
participate in such talks only when their nuclear potentials were brought to parity with its own.

In March 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump once again declared his intention to ask Russia
and China to hold such talks with the aim of avoiding a costly arms race (Reuters.com, 2020).
The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s response followed virtually in no time. Its spokesperson Zhao
Lijian said that China had no intention of taking part in the so-called China-U.S.-Russia
trilateral arms control negotiations, and that its position on this issue was very clear
(ECNC.cn., 2020). He called upon the United States to extend the New START and to go
ahead with the policy of U.S-Russian nuclear arms reduction, thus creating prerequisites for
other countries to join the nuclear disarmament process. There is nothing new about China’s
stance. A year earlier Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang, while speaking
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