China asked Washington and Moscow on Tuesday to “reduce their nuclear arsenals as a previous condition for their participation in the possible disarmament negotiations convened by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, as reported by the .
Trump said in a video speech against the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that “would like to see denuclearization” and reiterated his desire for tripartite conversations with Russia and China.
The day after Trump’s speech in Davos, Russia said he wanted to resume bilateral conversations about nuclear disarmament “as soon as possible” and that “the ball is on the field of Americans.”
These countries, ancient rivals of the Cold War, have almost 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, but Moscow retired from the last arms control agreement with Washington in 2023, in the midst of a marked deterioration of relations after the invasion Russian of Ukraine in February 2022.
“The two nuclear powers that have the largest nuclear arsenals must fulfill their special responsibilities in the field of nuclear disarmament,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry in a statement sent to AFP on Tuesday.
They must “substantially reduce their nuclear arsenals, in order to create the necessary conditions for other nuclear weapons states to join the disarmament process,” he added.
Beijing is, in principle, in favor of disarmament, but has regularly rejected Washington’s invitations to join the conversations between the United States and Russia about the reduction of its nuclear arsenals.
