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Catherine Wong

A senior US official has again stressed the need for China to agree to arms control talks with the United States, amid increasing concern in Washington over Beijing’s expanding nuclear arsenal.
Thomas Countryman, senior adviser to the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, made the remarks in a briefing on Friday.
It came after a senior State Department official on Thursday said he was “optimistic” the two countries could launch the process soon, according to Reuters. “But I can’t tell you exactly when or at what level,” he told reporters in Geneva.
Countryman on Friday said the two countries had yet to make any concrete plans but the topic was discussed during last month’s virtual summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden.
“We have long believed that it is important that the US and the People’s Republic have discussions about strategic stability, about the reduction of risk of incidents, about confidence-building measures. These are the kind of discussions that great powers need to have with each other,” he said.
“I know that President Xi and President Biden touched on this in their recent conversation, but I have no news for you about the time or the format or the subject.”


The growing calls from Washington come ahead of next month’s review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was due to take place last year but has been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
China, one of five nuclear weapons states under the NPT, is estimated to possess about 350 nuclear warheads, according to the Pentagon’s latest annual assessment of Chinese military power.
The US has 3,800 warheads, but has forecast that China’s stockpile could quadruple by 2030.
Washington has repeatedly urged China to join arms control talks and has proposed a new three-way arms control treaty with Russia.
But Chinese officials have argued that the country’s nuclear arsenal is still dwarfed by that of the US and have stressed its “no first use” nuclear policy.
Li Song, China’s disarmament ambassador in Geneva, told reporters in October that Beijing was not interested in “so-called trilateral arms control and disarmament”, and that it was not seeking parity with the US.
China building up nuclear arsenal ‘in response to US pressure’
Asked about China’s concerns over the new Aukus security pact, Countryman said they were motivated by “political” considerations. Beijing has said the deal to provide nuclear submarines to Australia could lead to a nuclear arms race and proliferation in the region.
“I don’t believe that China will ever be reassured. They have a reason to oppose other countries building any kind of submarines or military capability, even at a time when China is leading the arms race in the Pacific and building its own nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarines,” Countryman said.
“So they have a political or, if you like, a military reason to forever be opposed to Australia obtaining this advanced technology.”
He also took aim at Beijing’s “lack of transparency” on the nuclear issue.
“I think China also does not want the conference to spend very much time talking about China’s expansion of its own nuclear arsenal and its lack of transparency on its nuclear arsenal.”


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Senior official Thomas Countryman says there are no concrete plans but the issue was raised during last month’s summit between Xi and Biden
His remarks came after another State Department official said he was ‘optimistic’ the two countries could launch the process soon



Senior official Thomas Countryman says there are no concrete plans but the issue was raised during last month’s summit between Xi and Biden.


US-China relations