Russia Responds to China's Nuclear Weapons Plan

A top Russian diplomat says Moscow is giving some thought to China's proposal that the world's nuclear powers rule out a nuclear first-strike attack.

"We are paying attention to this proposal. We are studying it," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said, per Russia's state news agency Tass.

China has called for negotiations to begin on a non-first-strike treaty among nations with the largest numbers of nuclear weapons. Under such a treaty a country will not use its nuclear weapons unless it comes under nuclear attack itself or one is imminent. China is the only one among the nine known nuclear-armed countries that currently has a non-first-strike policy, which Beijing adopted after its first nuclear test in 1964.

Nuclear powers should "continue to fulfill the special and primary responsibilities and further reduce their nuclear arsenals in a substantive and significant manner," said Sun Xiaobo, director-general of the Chinese foreign ministry's Department of Arms Control at a meeting of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in February.

Sun also proposed a road map or timeline for weaving negative security assurance—or a guarantee by nuclear powers not to use the weapons against non-nuclear states—into the international legal framework.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Tuesday that the notion has "a grain of common sense" at a time when "the collective West has set a course for non-stop escalation of the international situation and does not take into account the risks that a direct armed clash of nuclear powers can lead to."

He said Moscow needs clarity from the United States on whether it is prepared to seriously consider the idea. Earlier this week, however, Moscow appeared to hedge.

Russian media outlet RBC on Monday cited the country's foreign ministry as saying Beijing's proposal should be weighed against military and political realities amid "the continuing deterioration of the situation in the world," including in relations among the "nuclear five"—which in order of the size of their stockpiles comprise Russia, the U.S., China, France and the United Kingdom.

Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Department of Defense, the Russian foreign ministry, and the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., via written requests for comment.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the country stands ready to unleash its nuclear warheads "if the question is about the existence of the Russian state." However, he said he doesn't anticipate such a contingency anytime soon nor the need to use a tactical nukes in his ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Asked to respond to Putin's remark at the Chinese foreign ministry's regular press conference Wednesday, spokesperson Wang Wenbin stressed Beijing's position that a nuclear war "cannot be won and cannot be fought"—a sentiment he said Moscow has repeatedly affirmed.

China is beefing up its nuclear weapons capacity at an unprecedented pace, going from an estimated 400 warheads to over 500 in two years, a figure that is expected to exceed 1,000 by the end of the decade.

The country is constructing over a hundred silos for its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles in what a new report has called "the most significant expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal ever."

"China remains intent on orienting its nuclear posture for strategic rivalry with the United States because its leaders have concluded their current capabilities are insufficient," the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence wrote in a report released Monday. "Beijing worries that bilateral tension, U.S. nuclear modernization, and the People's Liberation Army's advancing conventional capabilities have increased the likelihood of a U.S. first strike."