China Refused Disarmament Negotiations with Russia and the United States

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the US is trying to "shift responsibility to others when hoping to draw Beijing into negotiations." Washington called on China to act with "great power responsibility." China does not plan to participate in nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia and the United States. This stated the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Hua Chunying, Chinese media reported on Wednesday, June 10. According to it, China has repeatedly made it clear that "it does not intend to participate in the so-called trilateral arms control negotiations with the participation of Russia and the United States." Beijing, Hua Chunying noted, suspects that trying to drag China into negotiations, the White House “wants to shift responsibility to others” and distract attention from the fact that the United States has withdrawn from a number of international agreements on arms control in recent years. The last time China was mentioned in this regard by US Special Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingsley on June 8. "Today we agreed with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov on the time and place in June for talks on nuclear disarmament. China is also invited. Will China come and will it conduct negotiations in good faith?" He wrote on Twitter. Billingsley commented on China’s refusal to negotiate. "Achieving Great Power status requires behaving with Great Power responsibility," he wrote on Twitter, urging China to abandon secret nuclear projects. Russia’s position Recently, Russia has been actively seeking the resumption of disarmament negotiations. At the same time, Moscow cautioned against high expectations regarding the START-3 treaty salvation to further reduce strategic offensive arms, especially against the backdrop of the recent withdrawal of the US from the Open Skies treaty. In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin convened the Security Council to discuss the future of both these treaties. He criticized the United States for “the lack of desire to engage in serious negotiations to extend the START-3 treaty”, which expires on February 5, 2021. Putin emphasized then that this topic is of great importance not only for the USA and Russia but also for the whole world. At the end of May, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that after the US presidential election in November it would be too late to negotiate an extension of START-3 and there would be a threat of an uncontrolled nuclear arms race.