There is little chance the US could bring China to the table on any nuclear arms control agreements in the short term, despite upcoming leaders’ meetings this year, experts said on Tuesday, as the Trump administration pushes for a trilateral deal including China after the previous US-Russia treaty expired last month.
There is “no shortage of good ideas” for how the upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could move the world towards ending a nuclear arms race, Thomas Countryman, board chair of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said during an online briefing. But none of the three nuclear superpowers are taking active steps towards a meaningful negotiation, he said.
“I see very little creativity or initiative in any of the three capitals, Washington, Moscow or Beijing, to pursue new ideas,” he said. “It’s very much about scoring points in an eternal basketball game with no winners to see who can blame somebody else.”
Trump could, however, simply make an argument to Xi at the summit that China needs to join nuclear negotiations, and “that would be the definition for Mr Trump of success”, Countryman added.
After the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start), the world’s last binding nuclear arms control agreement, expired on February 5, Trump floated an “improved” deal involving China. The US president then threatened to resume nuclear testing after accusing China of secretly conducting a test in 2020, which China denied.
Beijing has little incentive to heed Washington’s requests, as international pressure on China declines with Trump’s recent aggression towards Venezuela, Iran and Greenland, Tong Zhao, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said at the Tuesday briefing.
“I think some countries in the rest of the world might start to see China’s overall military modernisation, including perhaps even nuclear modernisation, as a useful counterbalance against perceived American military aggression and geopolitical hegemonism,” Zhao said.
China has repeatedly said that it won’t take part in a new nuclear control agreement with the US and Russia, even as it insists that it has no intention of engaging in an arms race with any country.
“China’s nuclear strength is by no means at the same level as that of the US,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in February. “It is neither fair nor reasonable to ask China to join the nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage.”
While the Trump administration has outlined plans for a new nuclear arms control pact with Russia and China, it does not appear to have taken any concrete steps, Countryman said.
He noted that on Tuesday, Thomas DiNanno, the under secretary for arms control and international security at the US State Department, was “unable to say” that the US was proactive in talking to Russia and China.
“Our engagement with the P5 is ongoing,” DiNanno said without providing details, in response to a senator’s question. “The Russians and the Chinese, as well as the UK and France, are all involved in these discussions.”
The under secretary said on Tuesday that China’s expanding nuclear stockpile is “very much becoming a 2030 problem”, and that the US will “vigorously compete” and modernise its nuclear forces.
Mallory Stewart, CEO of the Council on Strategic Risks, said during the briefing that countries should seek creative approaches to prevent further nuclear buildup in response to one another’s activities, such as the P5 countries working bilaterally. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
