nuclear-news

In softening on China, the West may be trying to avoid a nuclear arms race

SCMP, Bob Savic 26 Nov 23

Why the West is suddenly softening on China: power grows out of nuclear warheads

• Weeks before Xi Jinping met various leaders in San Francisco, the US released an estimate of China’s nuclear stockpile
• Now, the EU and UK seem to be holding out an olive branch to China, especially with the surprise appointment of David Cameron as foreign secretary

In a much-publicised report issued on October 19, the US Department of Defence estimated China’s stock of operational nuclear warheads to be at 500, and exceeding 1,000 by 2030. This contrasts with its 2020 report that estimated a stockpile “in the low-200s”, which would grow to about 400 by the end of the decade.

Beijing has consistently dismissed these reports, asserting they are used to serve Washington’s strategic interest of portraying China as a threat to global security.

Irrespective of whether the reports are accurate or fictional, the West has probably decided to err on the side of caution and accept the findings. There has been a discernible shift as Western governments actively seek areas of mutual cooperation with Beijing.

Ultimately, this turn of events probably reflects Western concern over a nuclear arms race fuelled by dangerously destabilising great-power rivalry between China and the United States, at a time when the West is grappling with so-called fatigue in its conflict with Russia over Ukraine.

Further, there is the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. The major Western powers’ failure to back a non-binding UN resolution calling for a truce, which was supported by China and the vast majority of non-Western states, has opened a yawning rift between the West and the Global South.

In any case, one cannot rule out both factors in the West’s approach to China. The most high-profile rapprochement with China was clearly reached when Chinese President Xi Jinping met US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Apec summit in San Francisco.

After a year of hyper-tense relations between Beijing and Washington – over then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the Chinese “spy balloon” over mainland America – the Biden administration’s four-hour talks with Xi and senior Chinese officials signified a new strategy of constructive engagement.

As widely reported, the meeting concluded with an agreement to resume military-to-military communications, deemed vital in the context of increasingly knife-edge naval and air activities, by both sides, in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

Also on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, Xi held talks with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for the first time in a year…………………………………………………………………….

Other leaders, further afield, may also be seeking to offer Beijing an olive branch. In early November, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a summit with the Chinese government would take place in China in December, the first in-person European Union-China summit in four years………………

Lastly, and in an even greater surprise, was the appointment of Britain’s former prime minister David Cameron as the new foreign secretary on November 13. There has been much speculation about why the current British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, would bring Cameron back into the cabinet after he spent several years outside politics.

Among those reasons is likely to be that Cameron made high-level international contact when in office, not the least of which was crafting the “golden era” of relations with China, even having a pint of beer with Xi at a British pub…………………………………..

the new Pentagon report on China’s substantial upscaling of its nuclear stockpile, no matter whether it is accurate or not, may have been all that was necessary to prompt Western decision-makers to act swiftly, and in concert, thus averting any escalation of geopolitical tensions that might imperil the West’s still dominant global position.  https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3242540/why-west-suddenly-softening-china-power-grows-out-nuclear-warheads

November 27, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international