China and the United States will reportedly discuss nuclear arms control next week, the first such talks since the Obama administration.
The talks would be led on Monday by Mallory Stewart, a senior state department official, and Sun Xiaobo, the head of the arms control department at China’s foreign ministry, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry said the two countries would hold “consultations on arms control and non-proliferation” in the coming days, as well as separate talks on maritime affairs and other issues. It follows a visit to Washington by the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi.
The US state department and China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests by Reuters for comment on the timing or format of the talks.
The US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in 2021 that the Chinese and US presidents had agreed to “look to begin to carry forward discussion on strategic stability”, a reference to Washington’s concerns about Beijing’s nuclear weapons buildup.
But the White House was quick to say at the time that the discussions would not resemble formal arms reduction talks, like those the US has had with Russia.
Since then, US officials have expressed frustration that China showed little interest in discussing steps to reduce nuclear weapons risks.
China has more than 500 operational nuclear warheads in its arsenal and will probably have more than 1,000 warheads by 2030, the Pentagon said in October. But Beijing has long argued that the US already has a much larger arsenal. Russia and the US together possess almost 90% of all the nuclear weapons globally. The US has an estimated total nuclear stockpile of more than 3,700 warheads.
Under the New Start treaty, Moscow and Washington are committed to deploying no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads. Vladimir Putin said in February 2023 that Russia would halt its participation.
The arms talks would occur before a likely meeting between the US president, Joe Biden, and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in San Francisco in November, although a senior Biden administration official said on Tuesday that important details were yet to be hammered out.
A flurry of China-US diplomatic engagements in recent months, largely at Washington’s request, has sought to salvage what were rapidly deteriorating ties between the two countries after the US downing in February of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the United States.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said the overdue arms talks would likely focus on promoting greater transparency of each country’s nuclear doctrines and more effective crisis communication channels.
“I don’t think, however, we should expect breakthroughs in the near term. That’s going to take time and give and take from both sides,” Kimball said.
With Reuters