On Monday, the Biden administration is holding talks with China on nuclear arms control, a rare departure from their otherwise tense relationship, ahead of the anticipated November summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The talks—the first of their kind since the Obama administration—will broadly cover arms control and nonproliferation, but could also include crisis communications as well as nuclear doctrine, policy, and spending, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The talks come at a time of heightened nuclear tensions—not only amid Russia’s saber-rattling in Ukraine, but also as China rapidly expands its nuclear capabilities, and the United States feels immense pressure to enhance its own arsenal. If trends continue, this buildup could potentially overturn the decadeslong trend of U.S. nuclear reduction and further exacerbate the unprecedented regional arms racing in the Asia-Pacific.
Beijing maintains that the policy of no first use of nuclear weapons (NFU), which China has long endorsed, should be the foremost topic for any discussion on nuclear weapons. In August, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs doubled down on this insistence. However, such a prerequisite would mark a significant divergence from U.S. declaratory policy and has thus been a nonstarter for Washington.
