US and China should cooperate on reducing Asian nuclear threats, scholars say

North Korea and Russia have exploited the US-China schism to take actions that undermined the global order, Jia Qingguo of Peking University says at HKU

If Donald Trump is re-elected US president, Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings says, he must be told ‘there’s really no benefit in playing around with the one-China policy’

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Despite their differences, the US and China ought to work together on reducing the nuclear proliferation in northeast Asia, scholars said. Photo: Reuters

Published: 3:00pm, 21 May 2024Updated: 3:29pm, 21 May 2024

Beijing and Washington should set aside political differences and work together to reduce risks of nuclear proliferation in northeast Asia, Chinese and American scholars said this week.

At Hong Kong University on Monday, Jia Qingguo, a US specialist at Peking University, said that nations such as North Korea and Russia had exploited the US-China schism to take actions that undermined the global order.

“The deteriorating relations between China and the US have left the existing world order more difficult to be sustained, because there are a lot of countries that have grievances and want to challenge the world order,” he said, at a seminar hosted by HKU’s Centre on Contemporary China and the World.

“It’s a great pity that these two countries cannot cooperate and only focus on areas of tensions.”

Because of the intensifying US-China rivalry, “some countries have seen opportunities to do things that normally they were not able to do”, he said, citing North Korea’s accelerating nuclear and missile programmes and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The deteriorating relations between China and the US have left the existing world order more difficult to be sustained,” Jia Qingguo says. Photo: Peking University

Noting reports that several US allies voiced desire to join the US-led Aukus security pact with Australia and Britain, Jia said that recent polls showed more South Koreans and Japanese had become supportive of deploying or even developing nuclear weapons amid regional security challenges.