China Rules Out Nuclear Talks as US–Russia Arms Treaty Lapses

China on Thursday said it would not take part in nuclear negotiations “at this stage,” following the expiration of the New START treaty between the United States and Russia, a development that has raised concerns about a renewed global arms race.

Advocacy groups have cautioned that the lapse of the treaty, which ended long-standing limits on the number of nuclear warheads deployed by Washington and Moscow, could prompt China to accelerate the expansion of its own nuclear capabilities.

The United States has maintained that any future nuclear arms agreement must include China, but repeated international efforts to draw Beijing into fresh negotiations have so far been unsuccessful.

Speaking at a press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said China has consistently held that progress on arms control and disarmament must be guided by the principle of safeguarding global strategic stability. He stressed that China’s nuclear forces are on a completely different scale compared with those of the United States and Russia, adding that China would not participate in nuclear disarmament talks at this point.

The New START treaty officially expired on February 5 after US President Donald Trump did not act on a proposal by Russian President Vladimir Putin to extend the agreement’s warhead limits for another year. The United States and Russia together possess more than 80 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads, but bilateral arms control agreements have steadily eroded in recent years.

While China’s nuclear arsenal is expanding, with estimates placing its strategic nuclear launchers at around 550, this remains well below the cap of 800 launchers previously imposed on both the United States and Russia under New START.

Originally signed in 2010, the treaty limited each side to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, representing nearly a 30 percent reduction from the limits set in 2002. It also provided for mutual on-site inspections of nuclear arsenals, though these inspections were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic and have yet to resume.