The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the extension by Russia and the United States of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START-3) is an extremely important measure, but it is not enough.
“First, I would like to say that China welcomes the extension of START-3, which was an extremely important step that the U.S. under the Donald Trump administration opposed. Secondly, we don’t think it’s enough because even after the START-3 extension, the United States and Russia together possess more than 90 percent of the existing nuclear weapons on Earth,” said Fu Tsung, director of the Arms Control Department of China’s Foreign Ministry, speaking at a briefing.
He said Moscow and Washington should reduce their nuclear weapons “in an irreversible and legally binding way.” What is meant is that countries possessing nuclear weapons should not just reduce their operational deployment, because in this case such weapons are still available, but destroy the warheads. “For us, this is not a real reduction. When we talk about reduction, it has to be destruction,” Fu noted.
He said, “If the two nuclear superpowers continue to reduce their nuclear arsenal and reduce to our level, we would be happy to join the nuclear negotiations, we have said that many times, that is our position.”
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