China Horn rejects US call for nuclear arms control talks amid Pelosi visit to Taiwan

China rejects US call for nuclear arms control talks amid Pelosi visit to Taiwan

| August 02, 2022 04:26 PM

China denounced Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call for nuclear arms control talks as an attempt to “deflect blame” amid a brewing crisisover House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) visitto Taiwan.

“The U.S. asks China to be part of the nuclear disarmament dialogue … with one purpose only, which is to deflect blame and distract attention,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Tuesday. “The size of our nuclear arsenal is not on the same level with the U.S. At the current stage, to ask China to be part of the multilateral disarmament process is not fair, nor is it reasonable.”

China’s nuclear weapons advancements have stoked global anxiety that Beijing might imitate Russia’s strategy of attacking a weaker neighbor while using so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons to deter U.S. intervention. Hua shot down the call for nuclear talks amid a wider uproar over Pelosi’s travel plans, as the California Democrat refused to change her itinerary in the face of ominous official and propaganda statementsthat Chinese forces would retaliate in some fashion if she continued the visit.

“The U.S. has been following a strategy of using Taiwan to contain China,” she said, per the official transcript. “Any countermeasure to be taken by China would be a justified and necessary response to the U.S. oblivion to China’s repeated démarches and the U.S.’s unscrupulous behavior.”

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Hua delivered that protest, as a Chinese state media outlet emphasized, during her first appearance at the daily press briefing since “February 24, when Russia’s military operation in Ukraine started.” Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio — who aired his “strong sense of urgency that Ukraine today, maybe East Asia tomorrow” at a security conference in June — traveled to New York to participate in a conference reviewing the efficacy of the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, known as the NPT.

“While the number has significantly decreased since the peak of the Cold War … maintaining this decreasing trend is extremely important in getting closer to a world without nuclear weapons,” the Japanese leader told the United Nations in a Monday speech. “In this vein, Japan supports the dialogue conducted between the United States and Russia for further reduction and encourages the U.S. and China to engage in a bilateral dialogue on nuclear arms control and disarmament.”

His statement brightened the spotlight on China’s nuclear arsenal at a conference otherwise haunted by Russia’s nuclear threats.

“Any country that asks others to reject the pursuit of nuclear weapons also has to be willing to reduce — and eventually, eliminate — their own stockpiles of nuclear weapons,” Blinken said in his appearance at the conference. “We stand ready to work with all partners, including China and others, on risk reduction and strategic stability efforts. As we look to the future, we also have to strengthen agreements preventing nuclear conflict — and create new ones.”

Chinese officials have refused to contemplate restrictions on their burgeoning nuclear arsenal for years. And Beijing has touted the modernizing Chinese forces in an attempt to curtail U.S. government contacts with Taiwan, which the Chinese Communist regime regards as its sovereign territory, despite never managing to exert authority on the island.

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“Making themselves an enemy of the 1.4 billion Chinese people will not end up well,” Hua wroteon Twitter. “Acting like a bully in front of the whole world will only make everyone see that the US is the biggest danger to world peace.”