Geneva: The United States hopes to start the immediate weapons control talks with China, which expands nuclear arsenal and a nuclear-powered submarine fleet, said a senior US State Department official on Thursday, without giving a timeline.
China is expected to double the nuclear missile arsenal in the next few years, while the United States and the Russian Federation have trim in their stock, he said.
US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed at the virtual meeting last month to see the possibility of weapons control talks, US national security advisers Jake Sullivan said on November 16.
Senior US officials said Xi and Biden seemed to agree November they called the urgency of such dialogue.
“So I am optimistic that this will begin soon, but I can’t tell you when or at what level,” he told reporters in Geneva without determining the framework or scope of communication for this issue.
He said: “China is building a larger and more diverse nuclear Arsenal as evidenced by ongoing silos construction and the new shipping system develops.
We believe that Chinese nuclear arsenal can multiply in the next few years.” Washington has repeatedly urged China to join him and Russia in a new weapon control agreement.
China has welcomed the US-Russian dialogue besides Li Song, the Chinese armor ambassador in Geneva, told reporters in October who were not interested in “called trilateral weapons control”.
China said the Arsenal was dwared by people in the United States and Russia, and were ready to dialogue, but only if Washington reduced its nuclear deposits to the Chinese level.
Li said China did not seek parity with nuclear power and its nuclear capacity purely for self-defense.
The United States and Russia have held two rounds of strategic stability talks in Geneva since Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a summit in June, built in several decades of dialogue.
“But this is still a very difficult and more complex talk because technology develops,” said a senior US State Department official.
“Will take the time to develop the same level of productive negotiations as China and that’s why we believe it is urgent to start, at any level and on any topic,” he said.
The US said hoping for the “immediate” weapon control talks with China
