nuclear-news

The meeting on Wednesday of five major nuclear powers – China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States – will coincide with the start of a new round of high-stakes trade talks between China and the US in Washington.

In Beijing on Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying confirmed “nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy” would be on the agenda of the nuclear club known as the “P5”.

“The theme will be strengthening coordination of the five nuclear-weapon states and safeguarding the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons mechanism,” Hua said.

……..Zhao Tong, from the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy’s nuclear policy programme, said the Beijing gathering would also lay the groundwork for a five-yearly conference in 2020 to review the non-proliferation treaty.

At the last review conference in New York in 2015, member countries failed to reach agreement on how to advance the treaty. …….

Zhao said Hua’s remarks suggested that next week’s meeting would also be a crucial chance for the US and Russia to discuss their differences over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which US President Donald Trump said the US would withdraw from.

“The US and Russia should take this important opportunity to discuss ways to ease the INF dispute. If INF is abandoned, the New START that remains between them will also suffer … which will be a very dangerous trend,” Zhao said.

New START is a nuclear arms reduction treaty Moscow and Washington signed in 2010. The INF Treaty was signed by the US and the then Soviet Union to eliminate short and intermediate-range missiles.

Meanwhile in Washington, all eyes will be watching to see whether US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin can reach a trade deal with the Chinese delegation led by Vice-Premier Liu He. …….. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2183726/worlds-nuclear-weapons-club-meet-china-trade-talks-and-meng