US obliged to fulfill its responsibility in nuclear arms control

The world is watching with bated breath what comes next for global strategic stability following the expiration, earlier this month, of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the last treaty between the United States and Russia to restrict their massive nuclear arsenals.

But instead of responding to Russia's call to observe the treaty's limits, the US seems determined to shift the blame for the already fragile international security landscape on China, by groundlessly accusing China of "conducting nuclear tests".

Such accusations, as pointed out by Shen Jian, China's ambassador for disarmament affairs to the UN, serve as a pretext for the US to resume its own nuclear tests.

The US has been trying to frame and smear other countries in order to evade international arms control obligations, Shen said in his address to the High-Level Segment of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on Monday.

The US has, in order to seek an absolute strategic advantage, strengthened military alliance and promoted extended deterrence and forward deployment of land-based intermediate-range missiles, impacting global strategic stability and hindering the implementation of nuclear arms control initiatives.

The US has for long maintained extended deterrence and "nuclear umbrella" commitments with its allies in Europe and Asia. Since 2002, it has withdrawn from several treaties that promote arms control and strategic trust.

In recent years, the US has accelerated the pace to develop nuclear weapons by announcing it would restart nuclear tests and making large investments in modernizing nuclear forces.

It also risks disrupting the international nonproliferation regime by promoting the so-called AUKUS partnership — a security pact between the US, the United Kingdom and Australia, which involves the transfer of highly enriched uranium from nuclear weapon states to a non-nuclear weapon state.

All these moves have stirred up doubts that the global strategic balance and stability is giving way to rising geopolitical interests of the US and Washington's obsession to safeguard the US' security at the expense of others.

China, on the other hand, has been working to advance nuclear arms control with concrete actions.

As pointed out in a white paper it issued in November, China's nuclear weapons are not intended to threaten other countries, but for defense and self-protection. China has never used nuclear weapons to threaten other countries, nor deployed nuclear weapons outside its territory; it has never provided other countries a nuclear umbrella either.

Also, China is the sole nuclear power that is committed to the principle of no-first-use of nuclear weapons.

In Monday's speech, Shen reiterated China's firm support for the purposes and objectives of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

Moreover, the country, which has always honored the P5 commitment to the moratorium on nuclear testing, has pledged to never engage in any nuclear arms race, and advocated the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.

The country upholds a fair, reasonable, rational and pragmatic approach to nuclear disarmament. That means countries possessing the largest nuclear arsenals should take on a special and primary responsibility to reduce their stockpiles. It doesn't make sense for Washington to blame China, which keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required for national security, for the challenges the US faces in arms control and disarmament.

What the US should do is abandon its Cold War mentality and obsession with absolute strategic nuclear advantage, and negotiate in good faith with Russia.

The US should stop evading its special and primary responsibility, and take concrete steps to reduce its nuclear stockpile substantially.