China said today that it would not join nuclear talks at this stage after the expiry of the US-Russian New Start treaty triggered fears of a global arms race.
Campaigners have warned that the expiry of the New Start treaty today, which ended decades of restrictions on how many warheads the two powers deploy, could encourage China to expand its own arsenal.
The United States has said any new nuclear agreement would have to include China, but international efforts to encourage Beijing to join fresh talks have so far failed.
The New START treaty ended at the turn of the calendar on February 5, after US President Donald Trump did not follow up on Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s proposal to extend warhead limits in the agreement for one year.
It should be noted that Russia and the United States together control more than 80 per cent of the world’s nuclear warheads, but arms agreements have been withering away. However China’s nuclear arsenal is growing quickly, with an estimated 550 strategic nuclear launchers, which is still well below the 800 each at which Russia and the United States were capped under New START.
