China White Paper Proposes Complete Prohibition and Destruction of Nuclear Weapons

Dec. 7—Under the subheading “Nuclear Disarmament,” China’s new white paper on “Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation in the New Era” proposes that “all nuclear-weapon states should make an unequivocal commitment not to seek permanent possession of nuclear weapons, and seek to conclude a legal instrument on the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of such weapons.” It adds: “Countries possessing the largest nuclear arsenals should fulfill their special and primary responsibilities for nuclear disarmament and continue to make drastic and substantive reductions in their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable, irreversible and legally-binding manner, so as to create the conditions for complete and thorough nuclear disarmament. When conditions are ripe, all nuclear-weapon states should join the multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiation process.”

China supports “the purposes and objectives of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty” as well as “Engaging in deliberations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT).”

Returning back to the policy of no-first use, it argues that adoption of such a policy “is a practical move to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security policies and achieve the goal of nuclear disarmament. If the five nuclear-weapon states—China, France, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S.—could reach a consensus on mutual no-first-use of nuclear weapons, it would be conducive to reducing strategic risks, avoiding nuclear arms races, and promoting global strategic balance and stability.”

With regard to nonproliferation, “China holds that all countries should abandon the Cold War mentality, fully respect each other’s legitimate security concerns, promote peaceful settlement of the concerns of nuclear nonproliferation through political and diplomatic means, and eliminate the root causes of nuclear-weapons proliferation.” In that context, it calls for dialogue to address both Iran and North Korea.

It also opposes the U.S.-U.K.-Australia AUKUS deal for the “double standards on nuclear nonproliferation and the practice of favoring geopolitical interests over the international nuclear nonproliferation regime,” that lie behind it.