China rejects German appeal to join endangered cold war-era nuclear treaty
- Politburo member Yang Jiechi says Chinese weapons are defensive and don’t pose a threat
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel is calling for a global medium-range treaty to take account of China’s growing missile power
China has rejected German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s appeal for Beijing to sign up to a key US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty that is about to collapse, saying it would place unfair limits on its military.
Yang Jiechi, a member of the Communist Party’s decision-making Politburo, told the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday that China opposed expansion of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) between the United States and the former Soviet Union into a multilateral agreement.
The INF was a key nuclear arms control deal during the cold war, but US President Donald Trump started the six-month withdrawal from it this month, citing Russian violations. Moscow denied any wrongdoing.
Earlier at the event, Merkel called for a global medium-range treaty to take account of China’s growing missile power.
“Disarmament is something that concerns us all and we would of course be glad if such talks were held not just between the United States, Europe and Russia but also with China,” she said.
But Yang told the conference that the Chinese missiles were defensive.
“China develops its capabilities strictly according to its defensive needs and doesn’t pose a threat to anybody else,” he said.
The INF, which bans land-based missiles with a range of between 500km (310 miles) and 5,500km, was designed to address the biggest threat to Europe from a confrontation between the cold war superpowers.