UNITED NATIONS, August 3. /TASS/. China is committed to a self-defense strategy in the nuclear weapons area and will not be the first to use nuclear weapons regardless of the circumstances, says Chinese Foreign Ministry Arms Control Department Director Fu Cong said Tuesday.

"China is committed to the path of peaceful development and self-defense strategy and vows to never be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances," he said during the Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference in the UN headquarters in New York.

Fu Cong pointed out that China’s stockpile of nuclear weapons is "at the minimum level necessary to ensure national security."

"We do not compete with any country in power, quantity and scale of our nuclear potential, and we do not engage in arms race of any kind," he underscored.