China to skip nuclear negotiations amid US-Russia treaty lapse

China announced that it will not participate in nuclear disarmament negotiations “at this stage,” following the expiration of the US-Russia New START treaty, which has reignited concerns over a potential global arms race.

Campaigners have warned that the lapse of the treaty, which ended decades of limits on the number of warheads the two powers can deploy, could prompt China to expand its own nuclear arsenal, Caliber.Az reports, citing Russian media.

The United States has insisted that any future nuclear agreement must include China, but international efforts to persuade Beijing to join new talks have so far been unsuccessful.

“China has always maintained that the advancement of arms control and disarmament must adhere to the principles of maintaining global strategic stability,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a news conference.

He added, “China's nuclear capabilities are of a totally different scale from those of the United States and Russia and will not participate in nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage.”

The New START treaty officially expired on February 5 after US President Donald Trump did not act on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to extend warhead limits for an additional year.

Together, Russia and the United States control more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads, but longstanding arms control agreements between the two powers have been steadily eroding.

China’s nuclear arsenal is expanding rapidly, with an estimated 550 strategic nuclear launchers—still well below the 800-warhead cap set for Russia and the United States under New START.

First signed in 2010, the New START treaty limited each side to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, a nearly 30 percent reduction from the previous ceiling established in 2002. It also allowed for on-site inspections of each other’s nuclear forces, though these inspections were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic and have not yet resumed.

By Vafa Guliyeva