Don’t Fall For China’s Nuclear Con
When it comes to the bomb, Xi and Putin apparently are working out a bad cop-good cop routine. Just don’t get taken in when Xi wrist slaps Vlad for his nuclear threats.
State of the nation addresses on the eve of presidential elections usually are opportunities for incumbents to preview their platforms, and perhaps Vladimir Putin’s threat last week to start a nuclear war was his way of polishing his pitch. A president warning that he might push the button to end life as we know it on the planet isn’t a typical campaign theme. In Russia where the fix is in, however, Putin isn’t worried about a backlash at the polls.
In menacing mankind with the bomb, Putin isn’t alone. Indeed, these days conjuring the apocalypse is par for the course. Take Kim Chong Un. In January he dropped the idea of reunifying Korea, declared Seoul enemy number one, and threatened to vaporize the peninsula south of the DMZ. To be fair, Kim was only following suit. In 2017, then President Trump coined his own mushroom cloud metaphors, warning that North Korea’s family dynasty faced incineration if Kim acted up.
Putin and Kim have reasons for threatening their versions of Götterdämmerung. Last week, France’s President Macron suggested putting NATO forces on the ground in Ukraine. The remark upped the ante in Europe’s debate, apparently compelling Putin to see Macron and raise the bet. As for Kim, his recent blitz of missile launches has captured attention. With South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s popularity tanking as legislative elections loom, a muscled-up malevolence, in Kim’s view, might serve well as Yoon struggles politically later this year.
Whatever Putin and Kim have on their minds, the counterpoint from China, the pair’s longtime ally, suggests their nuclear threats aren’t sitting well with Xi Jinping. Or at least that’s what Xi would like the world to think. The evidence: China’s high-toned diplomatic admonishments last week when its Foreign Ministry put Beijing in the queue with other world capitals in criticizing Putin’s latest nuclear threat.
“In January 2022, leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states issued a joint-statement, affirming that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson said. "China believes that all nuclear weapon states need to embrace the idea of common security and uphold global strategic balance and stability.” The spokesperson continued, “Under the current circumstances, parties need to jointly seek de-escalation and lower strategic risks."
It isn’t the first time, of course, that Beijing has made clear the importance of international nuclear law and order. Nor has Xi been reluctant to distance himself from Putin in the past. Xi did just that in November 2022 when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Beijing. The two met shortly after Ukraine’s military success that spring rolled back Russian forces prompting Putin to rattle his nukes.
“The international community should jointly oppose the use of, or threats to use, nuclear weapons,” Xi reportedly told Scholz, according to Xinhua, China’s state news service. The world should advocate “that nuclear weapons cannot be used (and) a nuclear war cannot be waged in order to prevent a nuclear crisis in Europe.”
To be sure, Xi’s principled statements threw a bone to a politically beleaguered Scholz who took credit for encouraging the remarks. But they also helped China elsewhere in Europe where at the time Beijing wasn’t faring well in selling its global role. Beijing followed a similar wash-rinse-repeat cycle in 2023 after the Europeans roundly panned its 12-point peace plan for Ukraine. Leaks from Chinese officials made headlines, revealing Xi had warned Putin during his visit to Moscow that March not to use nukes in Ukraine.
The nuclear no-no’s per se aren’t Xi’s creation, nor a new twist in China’s public diplomacy on nuclear affairs. Since the 1960s China has maintained it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons or threaten to use them against non-nuclear-weapon states. But the timing of Xi’s pronouncements suggests his purported ‘Dutch uncle’ counsel to Putin had another purpose: to blow smoke as the international spotlight brightened on Chinese nuclear forces and their dramatic growth.
China is investing in a larger and more capable nuclear triad. Some 300 new ballistic missile silos are under construction; hypersonic air- as well as space-launched weapons are in development; and new ballistic missile submarines are on shipyard ways. In its recent report on Chinese military power, the US Defense Department foresees a fourfold increase—to 1000 warheads—in Beijing’s nuclear arsenal by 2030. The analysis points to continued growth to as many as 1500 warheads by 2035.
Not surprisingly, among military analysts as well as China experts, the effort to figure out what’s behind the build-up is providing ample fodder for debate. The theories cover the waterfront: changes in US capabilities such as layered anti-missile defenses and other new weaponry; cyber technologies that could neutralize an adversary’s strategic forces; and Xi’s own great power ambitions; all are all plausible, as are more ominous goals, such as a new role for nukes in China’s plans to take Taiwan.
A China that reaches nuclear parity has crucial strategic implications for the United States and its allies. Most obviously, US military strategists need to calculate how to deter not just one but two nuclear peers. In Asia, Japan and South Korea as well as their American ally also will need to rethink their plans—for instance, the type and position of forces necessary to deter simultaneous, potential nuclear conflicts in Korea and Taiwan.
In addressing his military’s modernization, Xi didn’t mention any off ramps two years ago when he spoke before the Communist Party’s National Congress. As he put it, “We will establish a strong system of strategic deterrence.” In fact, China has long rejected the idea of putting its nuclear weapons on the bargaining table. Its argument: Beijing’s smaller weapons inventory pales into insignificance compared to US and Russian nuclear forces.
Arms control allergy or not when it comes to their own forces, Chinese officials aren’t shy about speaking up about their guiding principles on curbing nuclear weapons. Addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva last week, Sun Xiaobo, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s director general for arms control, called for a treaty on no-first-use of nuclear weapons.
“China's proposition,” Sun said, “is that the countries with the largest nuclear arsenals should…further reduce their nuclear arsenal…so as to create conditions for other nuclear-weapon states to join the nuclear disarmament process.”
Sun didn’t mention China’s growing nuclear forces. Like Xi Jinping’s principled rebukes of Putin for his nuclear threats, Sun’s remarks made the news around the world. It wouldn’t have surprised the late comedian George Burns. “The key to success is sincerity,” Burns said. “If you can fake that you've got it made.”