Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning today responded to accusations against China by the Group of Seven and U.S. President Joe Biden, in particular, making the false charge that China is posing a nuclear armaments threat and building up its civilian nuclear energy to abet military use. At today’s press briefing Mao said, “The G7 is in no position to dictate to other countries on nuclear arms control,” noting that the U.S. possesses the world’s largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal, yet it adheres to the policy of first use of nuclear weapons and proliferates weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to non-nuclear weapons states. “Three of the G7 members are nuclear weapon states, and the remaining four participate in nuclear sharing or sit under a nuclear umbrella.” She reiterated the well-known fact that China does have a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons.
The G7 issued on May 19, along with its Joint Communiqué, a Reference Document titled, “G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament,” which not only attacked Russia for allegedly being a nuclear threat, but stated, “At the same time, China’s accelerating build-up of its nuclear arsenal without transparency nor meaningful dialogue poses a concern to global and regional stability.” (https://www.g7hiroshima.go.jp/documents/pdf/230520-01_g7_en.pdf)
President Biden also spoke out at the G7 in Japan, making charges against China for nuclear armament and related nuclear power development.
It is one of the minor ironies of history that the 2023 G7 Summit in Hiroshima would make “nuclear proliferation” a main concern of their deliberations, particularly since most of their decisions have set the world on the road to nuclear annihilation. As the U.S. has reneged on all the promises made to the Russian Federation after the fall of the Soviet Union, including the clear commitment for NATO not to expand eastward of a reunited Germany, and is fully intent on conducting a major conventional war with the aim of reducing Russia to a minor power, Russia has been forced to abandon the other treaties with the U.S. which would limit their nuclear response capabilities. Complaining about this matter is a blatant attempt to put the onus on Russia for the demise of the nuclear proliferation architecture.
In the case of China, while it has nowhere near the nuclear capabilities of the United States and Russia, the ongoing attempt to organize countries of the Asia-Pacific in a Pacific Rim NATO has led China to increase its nuclear arsenal in order to meet a possible threat from the United States. China also has one of the most ambitious programs for nuclear energy development, a pillar of its effort to move away from fossil fuels without imposing austerity on its people. Statements from President Biden at the G7 seem to indicate that there are sanctions in the works to restrict China’s nuclear energy program.
At his May 21 Hiroshima press conference, Biden said: “And if you take a look at what’s happened, we are more secure, with all the talk about China’s building its military—it is building its military, and that’s why I’ve made it clear that I am not going to prepare—I’m not prepared to trade certain items with China.
“And when I was asked by President Xi why, I said, ‘Because you’re using them to build nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and I’m not going to do it.’ And we’ve now got commitment from all of our allies they’re not going to either provide that kind of material that allows them to do that.”
The DOD has been falsely accusing China of developing their fast breeder program (which Russia, the leader in this field, is helping with), in order to develop plutonium for nuclear weapons. The argument itself is based on false pretenses, as China’s program for developing weapons-grade plutonium is not at all helped by the plutonium produced in fast breeders. The objective seems to be to cripple China’s successful nuclear power program, but possible sanctions specifically related to this program have not yet been elaborated.
