The Dongfeng-41 intercontinental strategic nuclear missile is displayed at the National Day parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. (Oct. 1, 2019)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Special Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea write a joint article accusing the Chinese Communist regime of being opaque in developing nuclear weapons and asking Beijing to join U.S. consultations with Russia on strategic arms reductions.
Secretary of State Pompeo (AP, Dec. 9, 2020)
In an opinion piece published Monday (Jan. 4, 2021) in Newsweek and reprinted on the State Department’s website, Pompeo and Billingsley said, “The New Crown virus (CCP virus) pandemic has taught the world that CCP lies can have major, extremely bad consequences. As the United States, allies, and partners renew their calls for transparency on the virus, we also urge Beijing to confess wholesale to another dangerous matter, which is the non-transparent and aggressive way in which Beijing has expanded its nuclear arsenal.”
Unlike the United States and other nuclear powers, Beijing refuses to reveal the size of its nuclear arsenal, how many nuclear weapons it plans to develop and how it intends to use them, according to the article, titled “The Communist Party’s Madness to Develop Nuclear Power.” China is the most opaque of the five permanent members of the United Nations.
U.S. Special Envoy for Arms Control Issues Marshall Billingslea
In an opinion piece, Pompeo and Billingslea said that despite Beijing’s secrecy about its nuclear activities, the United States knows that the Chinese Communist Party is seeking to build a trinity of land, sea and air nuclear strike forces that would pose a threat to the U.S. homeland and to U.S. forces stationed in the Indo-Pacific region.
The article says Beijing has taken advantage of decades of U.S. adherence to less effective arms control agreements to develop its own military capabilities. For example, while the United States has long been restricted by the INF treaty from developing ground-based intermediate-range missiles, the Chinese Communist military has deployed more than 1,000 theater-range ballistic missiles off its coast.
Pompeo and Billingsley called on Beijing to work with Washington and Moscow to develop a new arms control agreement that includes all nuclear weapons, saying “any new agreement to replace the New START Treaty must include China.
The 2010 New START Treaty between the United States and Russia stipulates that each can deploy no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads. That treaty expires next month.
The Trump administration has insisted that China should join negotiations on a new START treaty, saying the Chinese Communist Party has so far been developing nuclear weapons at its own pace.
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