BEIJING, August 27. /TASS/. Calls for Beijing to take part in Russia-US nuclear disarmament talks are unrealistic, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a briefing.
"China and the United States are at completely different levels in terms of their nuclear capacity, and the two countries’ nuclear policy and approaches to ensuring strategic security are also different. It’s unreasonable and unrealistic to demand that China enter trilateral talks on nuclear disarmament together with Russia and the US," he stressed, commenting on US President Donald Trump’s remark that Washington sought a further reduction of nuclear weapons together with Russia and would like China to join the process.
The diplomat pointed out that China "pursues a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons and a defensive strategy, maintains its nuclear potential at the lowest level acceptable in terms of national security, and refrains from taking part in an arms race with other countries."
In response to a TASS question, Trump earlier confirmed that Washington sought to engage with Russia for a discussion of prospects for nuclear disarmament. The US president added that the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) without it being replaced by another document would be "a problem for the world." Trump said later that he would like China to participate in denuclearization talks.