news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

On July 17, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian hosted a regular press conference.

Lin Jian said that for some time, the US has ignored China's firm opposition and repeated representations, continued to sell arms to Taiwan, and adopted a series of negative actions that seriously damaged China's core interests and undermined the political mutual trust between the two sides, seriously undermining the political atmosphere for continued arms control consultations between the two sides.China decides to suspend talks with the United States on holding a new round of arms control and non-proliferation consultationsThe United States is entirely responsible for this situation. China is willing to maintain communication with the United States on international arms control issues on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, but the United States must respect China's core interests and create necessary conditions for dialogue and exchanges between the two sides.

The suspension of arms control and non-proliferation consultations between China and the United States is expected. Under the current circumstances, we don't really need any reason to suspend arms control negotiations with the United States, because the reasons are sufficient. We need reasons to continue the negotiations. For example, the simplest question is, what are we talking about in arms control negotiations? Are we going to negotiate the scale of the PLA's armaments to the level of the US military, or the US military's overseas deployment to the level of the PLA? Ah, neither, so what is there to talk about?

In our view, arms control, as the name implies, is to control military proliferation. In other words, the United States should quickly withdraw its intelligence organizations and long-range strike weapon support from China's periphery. You can use them yourself, but don't coerce or bribe Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, etc. to buy your goods and accumulate a lot of equipment to cause trouble all the time.

The US side said that "arms control" is about easing the arms race and maintaining stability. In other words, China wants to control the number of arms. The starting points of the two sides are completely different, or both sides pretend to be confused. Once one side opens the arms control negotiation, the other side immediately leads to its own cognition. It is good enough that the other side does not curse at the other side within three sentences.

So under what circumstances can arms control consultations continue?

Referring to the Cold War, the essence of arms control and non-proliferation is that both sides are overwhelmed by the huge military investment, and they draw a common red line to avoid being destroyed together. What about now? The US military expenditure accounts for 3.5% of GDP, while our defense budget accounts for only 1.32% of GDP. Even so, our army can still fight back and forth with the US military in terms of equipment updates and new quality combat effectiveness, and even has a slight advantage. Am I stupid to talk to you about arms control?

The reason why the United States wants to talk about arms control is to restrict China and test China's bottom line, but it does not want to take it seriously. Since the Biden administration came to power, not only has it not fulfilled any of its promises of "four no's and one no intention", on the contrary, the United States is constantly breaking the bottom line.

The United States has continued to sell arms to Taiwan, promoted nuclear proliferation by setting up Ocus, organized the US-Japan-ROK military alliance and the Four-Nation Mechanism to contain China, and encouraged the Philippines to provoke China. Even at the NATO summit, the United States was ready to blame China for the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The United States is fighting against China in full swing, and on the other hand, it is negotiating with China. Such negotiations are really meaningless.

Moreover, one of the most urgent goals of the US in the arms control negotiations is to "understand China's nuclear weapons construction plan." Everyone knows that such a trump card that concerns one's life and property is obviously impossible to reveal to anyone. As a result, the US Department of Defense can only rely on guessing that by 2030, China will have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads.

Even if the United States guessed correctly, the logic is still flawed! The United States keeps saying that China's nuclear weapons are a terrorist threat. It is just a country with at most 1,000 nuclear warheads. What reason does it have to threaten a superpower with 5,000 nuclear warheads? In other words, who is the real threat?

Therefore, the basis for arms control negotiations is not very established. The United States insists on using this as an excuse for arms control, which is too lenient with itself and too strict with others. In addition, from the fact that the United States is so anxious to find out the true scale of China's nuclear weapons, it can also be seen that the United States has no confidence in whether conventional weapons can still suppress China.

Of course, in addition to the above reasons, there are some more variables recently. Since Trump survived the disaster, the international community and public opinion have almost universally accepted that he is the next US president, and the Biden administration has entered a caretaker period. And as we all know, according to Trump's character, he opposes everything Biden advocates.

Therefore, even if the US-China military control talks can produce some results at this moment, it will all be in vain once Trump comes. What can we talk about without a government that can make its words count? It is not too late to wait and see whether the US political situation can be settled. It is a wise option to pause.