Under the subheading “Nuclear Disarmament,” China’s new white paper on “Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation in the New Era” proposes that “all nuclear-weapon states should make an unequivocal commitment not to seek permanent possession of nuclear weapons, and seek to conclude a legal instrument on the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of such weapons.” It adds: “Countries possessing the largest nuclear arsenals should fulfill their special and primary responsibilities for nuclear disarmament and continue to make drastic and substantive reductions in their nuclear arsenals in a verifiable, irreversible and legally-binding manner, so as to create the conditions for complete and thorough nuclear disarmament. When conditions are ripe, all nuclear-weapon states should join the multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiation process.”
China supports “the purposes and objectives of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty” as well as “Engaging in deliberations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT).”
Returning back to the policy of no-first use, it argues that adoption of such a policy “is a practical move to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security policies and achieve the goal of nuclear disarmament. If the five nuclear-weapon states—China, France, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S.—could reach a consensus on mutual no-first-use of nuclear weapons, it would be conducive to reducing strategic risks, avoiding nuclear arms races, and promoting global strategic balance and stability.”
