China has not yet responded to U.S. proposals to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons, a top U.S. arms control official said on Wednesday, with Washington questioning Beijing’s call for no first use of nuclear weapons as China continues to build up its nuclear arsenal. US Deputy Secretary of State Bonnie Jenkins told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States estimates that China currently has 500 operational nuclear warheads and may have more than 1,000 by 2030.
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China has not yet responded to U.S. proposals to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons, a top U.S. arms control official said on Wednesday, with Washington questioning Beijing’s call for no first use of nuclear weapons as China continues to build up its nuclear arsenal.
US Deputy Secretary of State Bonnie Jenkins told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States estimates that China currently has 500 operational nuclear warheads and may have more than 1,000 by 2030.
She said U.S. officials met with their Chinese counterparts November last year discuss arms control and proliferation issues, which they Nearly five years.
“The meeting held preliminary discussions on potential measures to manage and reduce risks,” she said. “Unfortunately … the People’s Republic of China refused to hold a follow-up meeting or provide a substantive response to our risk reduction recommendations,” she said.
Jenkins also said of Russia that China’s nuclear weapons buildup “raises concerns that the United States may soon be faced with two expansionary, nuclear-armed states.”
“Beijing’s development of a larger and more diverse nuclear arsenal is deeply concerning and raises questions about the trajectory of China’s nuclear weapons program,” she said.
Jenkins was asked about China’s February call for countries with the largest nuclear arsenals Negotiating a No-First-Use Treaty They prohibit each other from using nuclear weapons or making political statements in this regard.
She said that this was the first time the United States had heard such a proposal from China and emphasized the need for nuclear negotiations.
“We haven’t discussed the proposal with them and we don’t know about it, so we just have questions,” she said.
“Frankly, our question is, how does the idea of no first use really fit into the process that they’re going through to build nuclear weapons? How sincere are they…?”
Jenkins said Washington currently does not have a no-first-use policy, but it does have a no-first-use policy against countries that abide by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
When asked whether the United States would not rule out the idea of discussing a no-first-use policy with China during comprehensive nuclear arms negotiations, Jenkins said:
“I would say we haven’t heard anything about it, so we have to take it back and look at it internally across agencies, but we’re not considering that idea at the moment and we’re not changing our policy. “Now. “
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