BEIJING: China said Wednesday that it would not participate in denuclearization talks with the United States and Russia, after President Donald Trump said he hoped to include Beijing in negotiations.
Trump on Monday said the United States was trying to pursue denuclearization with both countries.
“I think the denuclearization is a very — it’s a big aim. But Russia’s willing to do it and I think China is going to be willing to do it too,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“We can’t let nuclear weapons proliferate. We have to stop nuclear weapons,” he added.
Russia and the United States — former Cold War rivals — possess almost 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons between them, but Moscow pulled out of the last remaining arms control agreement with Washington in 2023.
When asked about Trump’s comments, Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Wednesday it was “neither reasonable nor realistic” to expect China to participate in trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations with the United States and Russia.
“China and the United States are not at the same level at all in terms of nuclear capabilities,” Guo told reporters.
“The countries with the largest nuclear arsenal should earnestly fulfil their special and primary responsibility for nuclear disarmament,” he said.
Beijing says it favors disarmament in principle but has regularly rejected Washington’s invitations to join US-Russian talks on reducing their nuclear arsenals.
According to 2024 estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States has 3,708 nuclear warheads and Russia 4,380, excluding retired warheads.
China had 500, 90 more than in 2023. Behind them were France (290) and Britain (225).
Beijing said on Wednesday it maintains its nuclear forces “at the minimum level required for national security, and does not engage in an arms race with any country.”
China says will not participate in denuclearization talks with US, Russia
https://arab.news/9zms4
China says will not participate in denuclearization talks with US, Russia
- Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Wednesday it was “neither reasonable nor realistic” to expect China to participate in trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations with the United States and Russia
European leaders expected to cement support for Ukraine amid Washington pressure to accept deal
- After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings
BERLIN: European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.
After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.
Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.
Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
Zelenskyy on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.
Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.
The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.
‘Pax Americana’ is over
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”
He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.
Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
