Analysis-Putin's nuclear treaty move raises stakes over China's growing arsenal

[February 22, 2023]  By Greg Torode and Martin Quin Pollard

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Russia's suspension of its last remaining nuclear weapons treaty with the United States may have dashed any hopes of dragging China to the table to start talking about its own rapidly accelerating nuclear arms programmes.

Regional diplomats and security analysts had held out the prospect of China somehow being convinced to join Russian-U.S. arms talks over extending the New START treaty ahead of its expiry in 2026 as way of easing growing fears over its rapid military modernisation.

China's nuclear arsenal sits at the core of those concerns as it grows in size and sophistication - an expansion that the Pentagon recently noted is now gathering pace.

"Compared to traditional Russian-U.S. exchanges, China is a black box - but one getting bigger every year," one Asian security diplomat said on Wednesday.

"Putin's suspension may have set us further back in terms of getting China to step up to the transparency table. There is so much we need to know about its policies and intentions."

In a speech ahead of the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Russia was suspending a treaty signed in 2010 that caps at 1,550 the number of strategic nuclear warheads the United States and Russia can each deploy while providing for mutual inspections.

Security analysts said the move could imperil the delicate calculus that underpins mutual deterrence between the two countries, long the largest nuclear powers by far, and spark an arms race among other nuclear armed states.

Tong Zhao, a U.S.-based nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he believed Putin's move limits the prospects of U.S.-China nuclear co-operation.

"This is only going to make China even less interested in pursuing co-operative nuclear security with the United States," Zhao told Reuters.

"Now even this last example of arms control co-operation is being seriously undermined."

NO FIRST USE

A nuclear power since the early 1960s, China for decades maintained a small number of nuclear warheads and missiles as a deterrent under its unique "no first use" pledge.

That pledge remains official policy but the arsenal that surrounds it has grown rapidly in recent years as part of Beijing's broader military modernization under President Xi Jinping.

The People's Liberation Army now has the ability to launch long-range nuclear armed missiles from submarines, aircraft and an expanding range of silos in the country's interior - a "nuclear triad" that some experts fear could be used, for example, to coerce rivals in a conflict over Taiwan.

The Pentagon's annual China report released last November noted that Beijing appeared to accelerate its expansion in 2021 and now has more than 400 warheads stockpiled.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping before an extended-format meeting of heads of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit (SCO) member states in Samarkand, Uzbekistan September 16, 2022. Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS

By 2035 - when the ruling Communist Party's leadership wants its military to be fully modernised - it will likely field 1,500 nuclear warheads and an advanced array of missiles, the Pentagon says.

The Pentagon also warns of possible conditions over "no first use" as the build-up continues - questions that echo many raised by regional military attaches and security scholars.

"Beijing probably would also consider nuclear use to restore deterrence if a conventional military defeat gravely threatened PRC survival," the Pentagon report notes.

A month earlier, Washington's Nuclear Posture Review said Beijing had been reluctant to engage in strategic nuclear discussions but that both bilateral and multilateral talks were needed.

"The scope and pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion, as well as its lack of transparency and growing military assertiveness, raise questions regarding its intentions, nuclear strategy and doctrine, and perceptions of strategic stability," it said.

Some experts believe Beijing has long been wary of being bound by any three-way talks with Russia and the U.S. given how far it remains behind U.S. capabilities.

FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Academics familiar with once-regular unofficial and semi-official exchanges - so-called Track 2 and Track 1.5 discussions - with Chinese counterparts over nuclear policy have also dried up in the last five years or so amid wider political tensions.

Singapore-based strategic adviser Alexander Neill said he believed China might increasingly support Russia's position rhetorically, while feeling emboldened to further accelerate its own build-up.

That would make it harder for the United States and its allies to engage Beijing on its nuclear doctrine, particularly on "no first use".

"China has been consistent in supporting arms control between the U.S. and Russia and has long wanted to maintain the image of being a responsible stakeholder - but there are growing questions about the future," said Neill, an adjunct fellow with Hawaii's Pacific Forum think-tank.

"The aim of the U.S. and its allies is to get crystal clarity over its 'no first use' policy because there's the Taiwan question," he said.

Carnegie's Zhao said that Putin's announcement may increase the risk of inciting other nuclear powers to expand their nuclear arsenals and break long-held commitments not to stage fresh tests.

"If that happens, it is a very negative development in terms of international ... nuclear order."

(Reporting By Greg Torode in Hong Kong and Martin Quin Pollard in Beijing; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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