BEIJING: China on Tuesday (Dec 23) urged the United States to fulfil its nuclear disarmament responsibilities after a draft Pentagon report said China was likely to have loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles in sites near the Mongolian border and showed no desire for arms control talks.
“As a super nuclear power with the largest nuclear arsenal, the most urgent task for the US is to earnestly fulfil the special and priority responsibility for nuclear disarmament,” Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a regular press conference in Beijing.
The US should “substantially reduce its nuclear arsenal to create conditions for other nuclear-weapon states to join the nuclear disarmament process”, Lin added.
In a draft report seen by Reuters, the Pentagon said China had probably installed more than 100 solid-fuelled DF-31 ICBMs in the three silo fields close to Mongolia. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based non-profit, has said China is expanding and modernising its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power.
“We continue to see no appetite from Beijing for pursuing such measures or more comprehensive arms control discussions,” the report said.
US President Donald Trump signalled last month that he might be working on a plan to denuclearise with China and Russia.
The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said he was not aware of the Pentagon report, but said “similar hypes” had been seen from the US before.
“It aims to find excuses for accelerating its own nuclear forces’ modernisation and actions disrupting global strategic stability,” Lin added.