China and the US have yet to get to a “space” where both sides are ready to sit down and discuss strategic deterrence issues, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Alexandra Bell has stated.
“There’s work to be done to begin the conversation, we think bilaterally,” Bell said at a forum hosted by the Atlantic Council, an influential DC-based neoconservative think tank.
“As a first step, we’d really like to have a conversation with them about each other’s doctrines, about crisis communication, crisis management,” Bell said, emphasizing that this year, on the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, “we need to be at the table having conversations with each other.”
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and WMD Policy Richard Johnson told forum attendees that Washington wants to engage with Beijing “about putting some guardrails into the relationship so that we don’t have unnecessary crises,” and said it was “a real concern” that the Chinese had stopped providing details on their plutonium stocks to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
China’s Deterrent
Along with the US, Russia, India, and Israel (allegedly), China is a nuclear triad power – meaning it has the means to engage enemy targets via ground, air, and sea-launched nuclear weapons. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates the People’s Republic’s nuclear arsenal to consist of just 350 nuclear warheads (for comparison, the US and Russia have 5,550 and 6,255 nukes, respectively).
The Pentagon estimates that the Asian nation is planning to amass 700 nuclear weapons by 2027, and 1,000 by 2030. However, Chinese authorities have asked US officials to tone down their rhetoric about the “Chinese nuclear threat,” and dismissed claims that the country is dramatically expanding its nuclear capabilities as “untrue.”
China is one of only two nuclear powers with a no first use policy, meaning that at least theoretically, Beijing won't launch its nuclear weapons unless it is attacked with such weapons first. India is the other nuclear weapons state committed to no first use.
Why is China reticent about negotiating with Washington on nukes? A few reasons immediately spring to mind.
Russian Lessons
Beijing has spent decades watching the arms control and security negotiations between Moscow and Washington, and observing how the US side has broken its commitments to Russia on issue after issue, from the expansion of NATO, to the scrapping of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, to the ripping up of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 2019, to the collapse of the Open Skies Treaty in 2020.
The Trump administration even planned to let the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) lapse, with the Biden administration reversing course at the last moment in early 2021, renewing it for another five years. Hawks in Washington advocated for New START to be scrapped based on the logic that China’s nuclear arsenal should be incorporated into any strategic agreement with Russia. Beijing dismissed the idea, saying it would be “happy” to consider joining any Russia-US treaty if the countries whittled down their nuclear stockpiles to China’s level.
In other words, given the US tendency to renege on and scrap agreements with other countries, China’s apparent reticence on engaging in negotiations with Washington is understandable.
America’s Asia Strategy
The security relationship between Washington and Beijing has gradually deteriorated ever since Obama-era Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the South China Sea a matter of US “national interest” in 2010. In the years since, US efforts to shore up regional alliances to “hem China in” and deny it access to the seas, and the deliberate sailing of Navy warships and Coast Guard vessels into China-claimed waters in the South and East China Seas and the Taiwan Straits, have given the People’s Republic plenty of food for thought regarding Washington’s strategic intentions.
With the US beginning a search for allies willing to station American ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles immediately after scrapping INF in 2019, China would have to be a geopolitical masochist to agree to negotiations with a Washington hell-bent on getting the upper hand against Beijing both in conventional and strategic terms.
Nuclear Escalation
On Monday, Australian media reported that the US Air Force was planning to deploy multiple nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers to Australia in a bid to create a long-term strategic “defense hub.” With Washington, London, and Canberra already incensing China’s strategic sensibilities a year ago by creating the AUKUS security pact, Beijing is likely to see the B-52s as another proverbial slap in the face.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian signaled as much at a briefing Monday, warning Washington that “the relevant US behaviors have increased regional tensions, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and may trigger an arms race in the region.”
“China urges the parties concerned to abandon the outdated Cold War and zero-sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical thinking, and to do something conducive to regional peace and stability and enhancing mutual trust between the countries,” the spokesman urged.
To sum up, China has several reasons to be weary of negotiating with the US on strategic weapons, including: a) Washington’s tendency to break treaties with other countries, b) years of US efforts to get an upper hand over the PRC in China’s own backyard, and c) America’s threats to destabilize the Asia-Pacific region by stationing nuclear-capable weapons in the region first, and calling for negotiations second.
The current US strategy against China isn’t anything new. The 1980s deployment of Pershing and nuclear cruise missiles in Western Europe became a major impetus for arms control negotiations initiated by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which culminated in the INF Treaty. Moscow agreed to eliminate its ground-based nuclear missiles in the 500-5,500 km range alongside Washington, even though the USSR was a continental European power and had many more such weapons than the US. With the Biden administration apparently hoping to similarly goad Beijing into talks from a position of strength by stationing strategic weapons near the Asian nation’s borders, only time will tell whether the PRC’s leadership will fall for the same gimmick.