China has given a subtle hint of willingness to discuss arms control agreements pertaining to its “dangerous and destabilizing” nuclear weapons buildup, according to a senior State Department official.
“It sounds a little bit like we’re pre-negotiating,” Marshall Billingslea, the State Department’s point man for arms control talks, told the 2020 European Union Defense Washington Forum on Wednesday.
Billingslea pegged that progress update to a new statement from a senior Chinese official who alluded to the possibility of negotiations Tuesday. The Chinese diplomat’s comments struck Billingslea as a “seeming evolution” from Beijing’s previously ironclad insistence on stockpiling more nuclear warheads, although even the new statements emphasized China’s determination to equal the American arsenal.
“I can assure you, if the U.S. says that they are ready to come down to the Chinese level, China would be happy to participate the next day,” Fu Cong, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s arms control director-general, told reporters. “But actually, we know that’s not going to happen.”
Billingslea emphasized China’s nuclear ambitions to defend the Trump administration’s insistence on Beijing’s involvement in any new arms control deals that bind the United States and Russia.
“It is, in fact, pursuing dangerous and destabilizing nuclear weapons with the intent, ultimately, of seeking nuclear parity, either qualitatively or quantitatively, with the United States and Russia,” he told the forum.
American and Russian diplomats met last month to discuss the extension of New START, the most significant arms control agreement restricting the stockpiles of the former Cold War rivals. The agreement expires in February. China boycotted the talks, arguing that its nuclear arsenal remains far smaller than that of the U.S.
Yet Beijing’s cache of warheads is growing rapidly, Billingslea said, adding that China “engaged in more ballistic missile flight tests for testing and training than the rest of the world combined” in each of the last two years.
“Any future agreement must be meaningfully verifiable,” Billingslea said. “We must ensure that countries that sign up to deals with us, in fact, will abide by their obligations. There is no longer ‘trust but verify’ with the likes of a cheating Russia and a secretive and nontransparent China. There is only verify and verify again.”
Billingslea said he is willing to attend a U.S.-China meeting for arms control talks, but only “as a way of setting the stage” for a negotiation that involves Russia as well. “As I’ve said before, and we will keep saying it, the best way to avoid a costly and destabilizing three-way arms race is to conclude an effectively verifiable three-way arms deal,” he said.
Moscow favors extending the current bilateral pact even if Beijing remains aloof. “We believe that it’s up to Washington to deal with Beijing on this issue,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said recently.
