China calls on US to cut nuclear arsenal
BEIJING CRITICAL OF REPORT
CHINA has criticised a US government report that cast Beijing as a potential nuclear adversary and called on Washington to reduce its own much larger arsenal and join in promoting regional stability.
A Defence Ministry statement said China’s nuclear arsenal is the “minimum level” required for security. It pledged never to be the first to use nuclear weapons “under any circumstances”.
The US nuclear strategy review said Washington wants to prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, is acceptable.
“The Chinese side expresses firm opposition” to the report, said a ministry spokesman, Ren Guoqiang. “We hope the US will abandon a Cold War mentality and earnestly shoulder its special and prior responsibility for its own nuclear disarmament.”
The ruling Communist Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, has the world’s fifthlargest nuclear arsenal, with 300 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The United States and Russia each have about 7,000 warheads, or about 20 times as many as Beijing.
Beijing has rattled Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian governments with increasingly assertive gestures and belligerent comments aimed at enforcing its claims to disputed islands and swathes of ocean.